The Viall Files - E297 Dr. Maya Shankar - The Secrets To Changing Peoples Minds

Episode Date: July 28, 2021

Dr. Maya Shankar is a behavioral scientist that discusses with Nick how it is possible to change people's minds not only in personal relationships, but also on a global scale. They dive deep into topics like social norms, narcissism, power dynamics, personal biases, and even The Bachelor.  Maya is currently the Senior Director of Behavioral Economics at Google and is the creator, host, and executive producer of “A Slight Change of Plans”, a podcast with Pushkin Industries. Maya previously served as a Senior Advisor in the Obama White House, where she founded and served as Chair of the White House's Behavioral Science Team — a team of scientists charged with improving public policy using research insights about human behavior.  You can listen to Dr/ Maya's  "A Slight Change of Plans" podcast here  https://podcasts.pushkin.fm/slight-change-of-plans “We use the term social norms, but it is really just peer pressure and social shame that people will pass judgment on you.” Please make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode and as always send in your relationship questions to [e-mail] to be a part of our Monday episodes.  For merch please visit www.viallfiles.com today! Don't forget to nominate The Viall Files for a People's Choice Podcast Award: https://www.podcastawards.com/ THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: Beam: http://beamtlc.com/VIALL use code VIALL to subscribe to dream for awesome perks like free delivery and 35% off your first month. Plus, you can pause or cancel at any time. Pill Club: http://www.thepillclub.com/VIALL The Pill Club is offering a $10 donation to Bedsider.org for every Viall Files listener who becomes a patient. Your donation will help low-income individuals get access to birth control through Bedsider.org. Natural Habits: http://www.nhoils.com code LOVE for 30% off.  Episode Socials:  @viallfiles @nickviall @aslightchange See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

what's going on everybody welcome back to another episode of the vile files i am your host nick and we have uh the team with us ell Allie, Amanda, and Chrissy. How's everyone doing? Is it working? Ooh. Ooh. Well, great job, guys. We have a fantastic episode for you guys.

One of my favorites, Dr. Maya Shinker is with us today. She is a behavioral scientist. And if you listen to this podcast, you know, we talk a lot about our choices, our behaviors, what influences us, how we break down our own situations, our ability to lie to ourself, not lie to ourself, things like that, and have a, just a really fascinating conversation with Maya and a lot of insights to, you know, how we make our decisions in life. So you're going to love this episode. I know I did, especially if you listen to this podcast. So I can't thank Maya enough for taking the time. We also have our 300th episode coming out next week. 300. Wow. Thanks for sticking with us, guys. Missy Pyle will be joining us. She is a wonderful, hysterical comedian actress. And her and I are going to be discussing and breaking down the popular show Sex Life on Netflix because, well, obviously it's about sex and relationships

and it is an outrageous show that has gotten people's reactions both positive and negative. And Missy is gonna help us break it down and talk about how relatable or unrelatable it might be. Also, Missy has some interesting perspectives on the show as apparently the prosthetic person of the show she's currently working on

is the prosthetic person who worked on Sex Life. So I think that raises a lot of questions on what is real and what is not. Anyway, be sure to check that out. Other than that, rate, subscribe, sending your questions at asknick at castmedia. Anyway, be sure to check that out. Other than that, rate, subscribe, sending your questions at asknick at castmedia.com, cast with a K for our Ask Nick episodes. And if there's nothing else, let's get to Maya. Maya, thanks for coming. Of course. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm so excited to have you here. For those of you who don't know, you are a behavioral scientist, which I'm

really fascinated to have you on. We often talk about a lot of things on this relationship. We often talk about a lot of things on this podcast, one of which is relationship dynamics and things like that with the conversations we have in our Ask Nick episodes, quite honestly, I always feel like what we are really talking about are people's behaviors, their reactions to situations and how they, you know, feel about something. And so it's really nice to talk to an expert and a doctor who studies that. What does it mean to be a behavioral scientist? Let's start there and make sure I understand and then I have so many questions.

Of course, well it's great to meet you, Nick. So yeah, I study behavioral science and it's the science behind how it is that we make decisions and how we develop our attitudes and beliefs about the world. And I think one thing that's so interesting for my field is that it reveals that there are a lot of surprising factors that influence our judgments and our attitudes and beliefs

that we might not even be consciously aware of. So if we can identify what those are, then we can design policies and programs and products in ways that actually align with our best understanding of human behavior. So a good example of this is we like to think when we go into a voting booth, we will vote for the candidate that we'd most like to see elected into office, right? That's common sense. But research shows that the order in which the candidate's names appear on the ballot has a huge impact on voter behavior.

In fact, they had this study they ran in Texas where if a candidate's name was listed first on the ballot, that candidate garnered a 10 percentage point boost in vote share relative to being in the last place. And so that shouldn't matter, but it's having a big unconscious effect on our patterns of behavior. And so, you know, having worked in public policy in the past, this is one of those things where you can design solutions, right? You can make it so that the names of candidates, for example, are randomized across all ballots so that there's more fairness across the system. So like if there's multiple ballots, not each ballot could be different. So some of them are listed first, some of them are listed last, and everything in between. Exactly.

Interesting. So that's one example. There's other examples. You know, the opioid epidemic is a big problem right now. It's obviously got lots of root causes, but they ran this really fascinating study where, you know, when patients go to see a doctor, let's say, right after they've had a bad accident, right, or a bad injury, typically doctors, when they're prescribing that first set of opioid pills, will go into an electronic system, some sort of software, and there'll be a preset number of pills in the system

that is the default number. And they found that when they changed that default number from 30 pills to 12 pills, so it's just inspiring doctors, just to think for a moment, right? If the patient truly needs 30, they can change that number. They have full agency to do so. But it's just getting them to a more conservative number. When they reduced it to 12, it led to a 15% reduction in opioid prescriptions across the entire hospital system. So this kind of shows the power of understanding human behavior,

the kinds of factors that influence people. In this case, the default that's listed in the system can exert a huge influence on the doctor. And then trying to design, you know, clever solutions around that so that we're just making better decisions across the board. How much does that have to do with like just laziness, right? Because what you're describing, first on the ballot or 30 versus 12, it makes me think of how much that has to do with laziness and are we just like, whatever? And do do you know if people go back and then justify their decisions like you know like you said voting of course i wanted to vote for this person they they wouldn't ever imagine or acknowledge that maybe they didn't really know

or especially if they were you know the moderate or undecided or that certainly the doctor he's not going to say well he probably didn't need yeah 30 he needed 12 or she's not going to say, well, he probably didn't need 30. He needed 12. Or she's not going to say. Or he or she. Yes. Thank you. Or they. They. But like, how much have you, does that play a role in terms of like, yeah, I didn't really look. And then we go back and then kind of replay kind of, you know, the hindsight is 20-20 and to justify the choices we make?

Yeah, it's an excellent question. And I definitely think that plays a role. As humans, right, we are inundated by information all the time. And it's important that we use heuristics and that we rely on some of our behavioral biases just to get through the world, right? If we cognitively reasoned through all of the information we are receiving at any given time, like none of us would be able to navigate the complexity of our world. And so we have to rely on shortcuts. And in some ways, like you said, these defaults that exist in systems, they're meant to serve as shortcuts. They are meant to cue social norms, right? Oh, the average doctor, you know, tends to prescribe this amount. So you're getting a lot of implicit cues from that. And like you said, it can inspire a lack of reflection in

these key moments where the decision you're making can actually have profound impact on another person's life. And so, one, I do think a lot of these nudges, right, implementing behavioral science can help inspire that moment of cognitive reflection that can be make or break when people would otherwise have just been lazy and just gone with the status quo. And then also, like you said, we're really good at justifying our decisions after the fact, right? We want to minimize cognitive dissonance as much as possible. We'll search for the silver linings of our decision.

And we see that play out so many times where you're just affirming your choices over and over and over again. Now, there are environments where laziness is not playing a role. So a good example of this is, as you know, I worked in the Obama White House during his second term. And one of the reasons I was inspired to go into public policy in the first place is that I'd heard about the fact that the government was offering reduced price lunches or free lunches for low-income kids at school. And despite the fact the government was offering kids these lunches, millions of kids were going hungry every day. They weren't taking

advantage of it. And when you did a behavioral audit of that, when you tried to figure out, okay, what's underlying the fact that we offer this program, but parents aren't taking advantage of it, you find that there are two barriers that don't intersect at all with laziness. So one is there's a stigma associated with signing up your kids for a public benefits program. And a lot of parents were like, look, I work really hard. I don't want my kid relying on the government. And then another one was that it was an exceptionally burdensome form that required, for example, a single mom having to reference multiple tax documents and fill out the form at exactly the right time. And that's a huge taxation to place on someone who's already strapped for time and resources. And so in that

case, what the government did is it did switch the program from an opt-in program to an opt-out program. And now parents only need to take a step if they want to actively unenroll their kids. Otherwise, their kid is automatically enrolled. And that kind of nudge led, you know, 12 and a half million more kids to eat lunch at school every day. So that's why it's so important, Nick, in all of these contexts, like, you know, exactly the question you asked, to figure out what is the psychological reason why we're not seeing, you know, ideal participation rates, or we're not seeing people act in ways that align with their long-term best interests. And when you can figure out the why, then you can design the relevant type of intervention or change to try to target that exact psychological bias.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Because like you said, when you change it from an opt-in to an opt-out, then it sounds like you're eliminating all the people who might struggle with the forms and things like that. And then for the parents who have like an active, listen, I'm just not for this. Thanks for the offer, but my kid and we are going to handle it ourselves. Then they can just deal with it. Exactly. So I think a big piece of behavioral science, or at least the good implementation of behavioral science is that it should never infringe on people's personal rights or agency or freedoms, right? You are trying to steer folks in a direction that you believe does align with

their long-term goals, but you're never taking away that agency. Interesting. So as a behavioral scientist, especially now in today's climate, you mentioned social norms. And we're in a climate where, like never before, social norms are being challenged in the best possible way in a lot of scenarios. What is your just overall point of view on social norms and just that climate? And I ask that because I think there's a lot of people who just the word almost social norm has become a triggering word or something that some people will associate negatively with just because they might not feel normal or they don't associate with something that is considered a social norm. So what is your point of view on social norms and how can we kind of navigate today's climate?

Yeah, social norms, at least from the behavioral science perspective, refer to the idea that we are really motivated by how people around us behave. And to your point about wanting to make sure that we identify with the people whose behaviors we're trying to align with, social norms are much more effective when they involve people that we have some sort of shared identity with. show how other teachers behave, how other teachers act than say how the general population acts. Because you know that this teacher, this other teacher, this other set of teachers might share the same values as you, right? So you're kind of going in assuming that there's some shared belief or value system. And so it's helpful to align. When it comes to recovery, performance, immunity, and feeling less stressed, sleep is everything. And I actually found the answer to better sleep in a delicious, healthy cup of cocoa.

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the environment. None of that worked. The one intervention that worked nick was telling people that they were using more energy than their neighbors and as soon as that they're they learned that um and it was truthful information right you were never telling someone they're using less if they weren't but in cases where they were sorry using more in cases where they were using more you just tell people that and is this like an fyi like just you know like roger and across the streets kicking your ass absolutely and so they're like as soon as you find that out you're like wait i need to crush Like an FYI, like just so you know, like Roger across the street's kicking your ass. Absolutely. And so they're like, as soon as you find that out, you're like, wait, I need to crush this neighbor.

Like what the hell? Of course I'm going to step up. And so that was extremely effective at getting people to use less energy, just that social comparison. Is it because they're making it personal or like intimate in there? Yeah. Is it because it's easier to be like,

well, I don't care what everyone else is doing. I'm going to do it this way. I think it depends on the area, of course. And there are some places where you want to be contrarian because you don't buy into the social norm. Yeah. But when it comes to energy expenditure, I think sometimes people have good intention. It's just really hard. You know this, right?

Like we have lots of intentions at any given day. It's just hard to execute on those intentions and actually like make it, you know, we have so many things we want to achieve and there's competing incentives in our day-to-day life. It's like, oh, do I really want to cut my like hot shower in the morning, you know, short by 10 minutes. But then when you know that like Bobby down the street is doing that, you're like, oh, God damn it.

Okay, I'm going to put in a little bit more effort. Yeah, and that's really interesting because like it almost speaks to the idea that I think we all like to think of ourselves as, you know, love thy neighbor, thinking of, you know, the person we don't know. And when it comes down to it, we almost kind of need to be triggered,

whether it's our egos or whatever it is, because that sounds like, you just make it personal like compete you know like yeah that really that scenario you suggested that the only thing that worked had nothing really to do with you know uh thinking of other people that you could help it was just like the future of the planet it was just like beating your neighbor so like at like the family outings you could be like oh all that energy you're using, bro. Like, wow. I mean, we use the fancy term social norms, but it really is just like social shaming and peer pressure at play. And I think another interesting dimension of this is

part of social norms is wanting to conform or like you said, compete with those around us when there's virtue signaling of any kind. And then another is the feeling that others will pass judgment on you if you don't conform. And the feeling that other people might judge you for something can inspire also very pro-social actions or, you know, better behaviors. You know, you've seen those videos of like, I remember they showed this video when I worked at Salesforce, but like one person in this park goes and starts dancing like a fool. You probably know what I'm talking about. And then another person comes and starts mimicking them.

Ten minutes later, everyone's dancing like a fool because we just like to follow, kind of that sheep mentality. But we also, again, in this climate shifting and maybe it's through the internet or whatever, also again in this climate shifting and maybe it's through the internet or whatever the the value of the individual is becoming more and more like my feelings and things like that which again we're learning how to recognize but what's really true right because are we are we more focused off of our feelings or are we identifying because that's what people around us are doing? It almost seems like, again, like what we think is true might not actually be true.

Yeah. Look, I think I have a couple thoughts there. So to your point about dancing like a fool, there's this one study in which they gave people a really basic task. It was something like, tell me which line is longer on the page, right? Or like which shape is bigger, okay? But they had maybe eight or nine like decoy people in the room. And those people intentionally chose the wrong line, okay? And then they bring in, you know, participant number 10, who's the real participant in the experiment. And that person is

like, oh my God, wait, is my visual system betraying me right now? Because they choose the wrong one. But what's powerful about that example, and this is a sub-finding that gets less attention, is that when they bring in just one person who speaks the truth into that environment, it can actually play an overwhelmingly good role in changing that person's mind back to what's actually right. So it's like, let's say nine people are saying, nope, the shorter line's longer. And then you bring in, you know, the test subject and they're super confused. But then you just bring in one person to say, nope, that's definitely the shorter line.

And that can actually lead a person to get a stronger grip with reality. So on the topic of, you know, individualism versus group identity, um, I do believe that we are empowering the individual more. Um, but it is so baked into our DNA to value our tribal membership and that's not going anywhere. Look, the bachelor franchise relies on this. So their business model is screwed if that's not the case. Um, they rely on the social dynamics. But let me give you an

example of just how potent these kinds of group allegiances can be and how influenced we can be by them. So when it comes to changing people's minds, I think we all feel really frustrated, right? Like the proverbial Thanksgiving dinner, we're all sitting down for a meal and you just have that one uncle or family member who's just like, COVID isn't real or believes in some insane conspiracy theory. And it's tempting in those moments to be like, oh, well, I'll just give him more facts, right? I'll just give him more information. Like it's an information gap. Let me just explain. Yeah, let me just explain. I'll use a scientific explanation. I'll be very pedantic and clearly

we'll make progress. Slaminated. Exactly. And of course, we've all had the very visceral experience of that not working at all, right? And so this is corroborated by research on what's called cultural cognition, which shows that as humans, we don't just develop our attitudes and beliefs about the world based on facts. We, in large part, develop our attitudes and beliefs about the world based on facts. We in large part develop our attitudes and beliefs about the world based on our group identities and what values and beliefs those groups have.

And this is such an important insight because it helps us appreciate moments where we just cannot understand what's going through another person's mind. You're like, just wear a damn mask. It's a piece of cloth. It'll keep you safe. I promise this is worth doing. But to that person, wearing a mask can carry huge symbolic significance. It could mean threatening their allegiance to their group, right? And that's something that can put them on very risky terrain. And there's this really compelling study that I think shows, again, just how powerful this is. So they had footage of a lot of controversial referee calls from a particular football match. And they brought together fans from opposing teams and had them

watch these controversial referee calls. And despite the fact that all of these people were watching exactly the same footage, okay, they had very, very different conclusions about the nature of these calls. Fans of one team tended to believe that all the unfair calls were against their own team and vice versa. And what's interesting to me about this study, Nick, is that it's not like folks are consciously thinking like, yep, I'm biased. I can't see anything with, you know,

objectivity. You know, I know that my group allegiance is affecting me. No, they genuinely believe that that is reality. So in many ways, the group identity is shaping how reality is unfolding in front of them. It is affecting how their visual system is processing incoming stimuli. And so I do believe that it's important for us to keep that group membership idea in mind and not discount it just because we do see a rise in individualism because it's still playing a very powerful role in all of our lives. And I think that when we can appreciate the motivation behind why someone might believe something that we code as just being nuts, like just doesn't make any sense. It can increase our empathy towards that person and then help us use more scientifically based strategies to engage with them because there are solutions, right? For trying to better

engage with folks. Yeah. Well, I want to talk about that because I'm actually kind of fascinated to hear you say that because I think I also took, maybe a lot of people take for granted, like I'm a big sports fan, right? And so like and maybe i'm wrong but like when i'm watching sports there might be a call and i'll be like i mean i think we got a break you kind of think you know and um even even sometimes when it's really unclear i'm this, I feel like I'm aware of my bias. Now, are there people like that or even myself who thinks I'm unbiased and I really actively try to be fair? Can I still be disillusioned with my bias? Yes. So as someone who studies this for a living, I fall prey to, I'm certain, a feeling that I'm being objective, but actually in some ways my emotions or other expectations

about the world or my group allegiance makes me in some way more charitable to quote my team. And that's just irresistible. I would say it's akin to and maybe not as severe as this because I do think recognizing our biases can serve as a nice antagonist for some of this bias to play out in the real world. But like it's the equivalent of, did you grow up with magic eye? Remember those books with these optical illusions in them? Yeah. We'd stare. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think we're probably close enough in age that we both grew up with this.

But maybe your younger crowd's like, what the hell is magic eye? Anyway, so there are these optical illusions and you see them and you know these are optical illusions because the whole book's premise is that these are not real things, right? You stare and, or, you know, they'll have these visual illusions where it's like, oh, these boxes are actually the same size. And you're like, no, they're not. They look totally different. And then you're proven wrong. You can know that. Your high level cognition can fully appreciate that the boxes are the same size or that the chess piece or whatever,

those chess squares on the board are the same color. And yet your visual system will betray you every time. It'll be like, nope, I'm seeing them as different colors. And so that's an important thing to keep in mind. Now, I studied visual perception in college. So visual system doesn't work quite like high-level decision-making. That's a more severe case where we're just, I would call it impenetrable. We're not able to penetrate with high-level reasoning.

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Essential Oils is a great way of doing that safe and clean. USDA organic essential oils that are blended together to maximize its benefits. NHOils.com, code love for 30% off and free shipping. But I think that's important for all of us to keep in mind because I will share this, Nick. So there's research showing that like the smartest people can actually be the most prone to bias. And that's because- I think I saw that on your Instagram. Yeah, yeah, with Adam Grant. Yeah, yeah. So continue. It was really interesting. It's very interesting and it's very humbling for people out there who consider themselves

very smart. And that's because smart people happen to be very good at identifying patterns in the world. And when you can quickly identify patterns in the world, it can actually make you more prone to stereotypes because you effortlessly bucket things into existing categories. And so they found that when these highly skilled mathematicians were coding data about a topic they didn't care about, like skin rashes, didn't matter. They were very objective. But the minute it involved a emotionally charged or politically charged topic that they gave a shit about, like gun control reform or the environment or immigration, you would see them be more biased in their mathematical analysis of the data set. And so I think, you know, if these mathematicians are falling prey in some way as they're doing statistics and analyzing data, and you find that they are more prone to that, then there's something

for everyone to learn from that anecdote. Yeah. So what are some of the solutions to deal with this? One question we get often on the show or on, and when people reach out is, especially when it comes to different belief systems and relationships, political ideologies, family dynamics, religion, how can people do that successfully?

Or is it one of those things where depending on how aligned they are to their group will determine their success and if let's say they everything about this person i love them they're great i felt so good and as long as we don't talk about this we're great but obviously that's not sustainable in like a marriage or like raising children and things like that where you're going to be forced to like face some of these differences and ideologies, how would a couple or a friend group successfully approach these topics without like agreeing to disagree? Yeah, look, I love that question because in many ways it was the inspiration for my new podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, which is we have entered this mode

where we're in avoidance mode with the people who we just can't communicate. It seems like we just can't communicate with them anymore. Yeah, well, yeah, I want to talk more about that too. Yeah, these topics are full of like electrical charge and I'm just going to stay away from that. We're going to focus on the cranberry sauce or whatever at the meal, right?

And part of my inspiration in this podcast and in either capturing people's stories or talking to people like Adam Grant is to help unpack the science of how we can, in fact, engage productively with people. So let me give you an example of a conversation I had with an incredible guest, and then I'll tell you how the science corroborates his experience. So the first episode of my podcast involves a guy named Daryl Davis. He's a black jazz musician. He's going about his life playing boogie woogie and rock and roll and having the time of his

life. And one night he's at a bar playing a gig, and he's approached by a member of the Ku Klux Klan who is enamored, and Daryl Davis is a black jazz musician, and this Ku Klux Klan man is enamored by Daryl's music playing. So initially they strike up a conversation and then Daryl suddenly realizes, oh my god, this guy is from the Klan. And long story short, it's a fascinating tale of how he gets involved in this kind of work, but he ends up inspiring hundreds of people to leave white supremacy groups and befriends people in the Klan and convinces them to give up their robes and shut down chapters and end this vitriol and hate.

And it's such a powerful story to me because if you can take someone who has the most reprehensible views about the world, right? And you can get them to change their minds, it is an empowering message about what's possible. So let me tell you the kinds of strategies that Daryl used. And this is again corroborated by the science. It taps into a field called motivational interviewing, which talks about very effective strategies

for facilitating productive discourse. So one is you want to show genuine curiosity for why it is that person has come to the beliefs they have up until this point. So rather than talking at them, you're talking with them about what their journey was like. And then a nice follow-up question to understanding and unpacking how it is they arrived at their beliefs is to then say, and what kind of evidence would you need to try to, that would effectively convince you otherwise, right?

Like in what way would you be willing to change your mind? What would I need to provide you? And that question is really important because it presupposes that they ought to be willing to change their mind in the face of new information and evidence, which is something that we can't always take for granted. Another strategy that's very effective is to increase your question to statement ratio. So again, that feeds into the curiosity. One thing that I loved about Daryl's approach is that he says he doesn't like taking credit for having

changed their minds he inspired them to change their minds and that also speaks to a cognitive science principle around the importance of recruiting people's agency you want people to feel like it was them who came to a different way of thinking right you just kind of plan a seed you plan a seed exactly and then if you give them a new perspective a new way of thinking about right? You just kind of plant a seed. Yeah, you plant a seed. Exactly. And then if you give them a new perspective, a new way of thinking about the world, let it marinate, right? Like you don't force it down their throats. In fact, you can actually say back to them what you've heard them say in your own words to reaffirm that you are actively listening. And Daryl using these much more compassionate, non-aggressive tactics, you know, it can be infuriating for many of us to imagine

having that kind of disciplined conversation with a member of the Klan, right? It's just like, oh my God, it's so easy to just get so enraged by their ideology. But the approaches that he uses are very effective, you know, and we see that bear out in the science. Yeah, really, I mean, I'm just trying to think, I can imagine, you know imagine Daryl having this conversation with this KKK member.

And this KKK member is saying, you know. Insane things. Insane things. And Daryl's just like, interesting. Tell me more. To kind of lead them down a path and make them feel comfortable takes an incredible amount of, obviously, discipline. Yes. And, you know, I'm thinking about like,

obviously the world we live in today and people, trigger warning, right? We get very triggered by so many things. I mean, in fact, we all, and we all do. And sometimes it's the smallest of things. And you're just like, wow, I'm so worked up right now. And you're just like, over what? Like how, why are we so prone to being triggered by, I guess, anything? Is it because it's affecting our individual identity or our group identity or a combination of both?

Yeah, great question. It is because we attach our belief systems to our identity. And so when we hear someone that challenges those set of beliefs, it's a threat to ourselves. It's a threat to what we believe in and how we live in this world. Our investment. Absolutely. And I'll give you another anecdote. So on the same topic of changing minds, I interviewed a woman named Megan Phelps Roper. She grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church. Are you familiar with Westboro? No. Okay. I mean, I'm familiar with the general Baptist religion, but not specific. It sounds like it's more specific. So this is probably

not like the church you went to growing up. I was Catholic. You're Catholic. Okay. So this church is full of vitriol. So they are anti-Semitic. They are homophobic. They do insane um almost like theater where they show up to the funerals of like deceased gay military members they wanted to protest the sandy hook shooting funerals like they genuinely believe that anybody who doesn't believe in this insane ideology of theirs is going to hell as a terrible person they're hardcore yeah they're hardcore are they aware of their hardcore or yeah so let me let me get to that, right? So Megan was born into this church. Her grandfather founded it.

And she was steeped in this ideology. Okay, she's telling me that she was one of their most ardent advocates and activists. And she was out on the front lines promoting the church and spewing hate all on Twitter and whatnot. And then people started to engage with her in the way that I just described on Twitter, not as antagonistically, trying to understand where she was coming from in this very compassionate way. And then using, again, another insight from behavioral science called moral reframing. And moral reframing, oh my gosh, it's one of my favorite insights because I think it's actually treading new ground in this area of changing minds. But it refers to the fact that

because we feel so attached to our value systems, a safer way of engaging with a person is to hold the person's values as fixed and then just reframe your arguments in ways that affirm that person's values rather than threaten them while still getting the same point across. So to make this more... No, give me an example. Yeah, let me give you a colorful example. So let's take climate change, for example. If you're talking to liberals, you can talk about the fact that investing in climate change reform helps elevate the economically underprivileged, right? It can help, you know, those in lower income communities thrive and be protected. If you're talking to someone

with more conservative values, you might talk about the fact that it's patriotic to preserve our nation's beauty and that it can actually help create more jobs. It can boost the economy, right? So you're identifying what values they care about. And it's the same end goal, Nick, right? In both cases, you're trying them to give a crap about climate change, but you are framing it in a way that allows them to see, allows them to both challenge maybe their high-level views, but feel like their axioms and their values can stay fixed in the face of that. So it's like an easier bite to swallow. And so for Megan, they were, instead of just saying, Megan.

Can I interject for a second? Oh, of course. And so for Megan, they were, instead of just saying, Megan. Oh, of course. This is crazy that you're talking about Megan. Because Megan used to protest the church that I went to in Hollywood. Wow. So the Hollywood United Methodist, it's got an AIDS ribbon on it, whatever.

When she left the church, she decided she was going to go and make right all the things that they did wrong, protested, talk crap about, all the people that she sat in front of, the people in our church that she targeted, everything. She came to our church. I took her to breakfast. My pastor took her to breakfast. We have an actress named Polly Perrette who took her to breakfast. And we extended the kindness to her to show her what this environment actually was. And we spent the entire day with her and her younger sister, who was also escaping the church. And we drove them all around Hollywood. We had open conversations.

She was nervous to be there because of how people would react to her. She was actually living at the time with a rabbi, with a church that she had protested also, a synagogue also in LA. And so she was like learning the Jewish religion. And she was like, I can't believe how good these people are. The person we spent the day with was gay. And she's like, I can't believe how nice of a person you are. It was like taking someone who's never seen television and putting them in front of a television and showing them the world that they had never seen before and their eyes opening and witnessing that in a weird way. I even gave her a job to come on set and like hang out on a show just so she could meet different

people because her curiosity was so peaked at meeting all these different people. And she said to us one day, I just realized that what my dad was telling me was not in the Bible that I was reading. And that was the split for her is that she couldn't find the exact wording in the bible now well it's fascinating i think you're kind of speaking yeah to what maya's saying and it sounds like you guys never spent any time trying to convince her of anything you just kind of

showed her just hung out with someone who was gay she hung out with a rabbi she hung out with someone who was gay. She hung out with a rabbi. She hung out with people of different faith. She received kindness from people that she had never expected to receive kindness because she spewed so much hate towards them. Yeah. And it was like, it was crazy. And she has said that, she actually worries that had she, we were talking on the phone the other day about this she was like if i left the church in 2021 would people have greeted me with such compassion and kindness as they did when i actually left which was i don't know maybe in like 2012 so it's an interesting thought experiment about whether she's wondering because like it's more polarizing these days yeah

exactly and whether um whether people would have extended the same compassion that was extended to her by this other church, right? But she does feel that that was her way out of the church was people saying, Megan, we're not questioning your humanity. We fundamentally believe you can be a good person. We are going to reframe some of these,

we're going to, you know, point out maybe some inconsistencies within your church rather than saying the entire ideology you subscribe to is batshit crazy, which is a very alienating thing to say to someone. It can just lead to that division. And yeah, ultimately she ended up leaving and she has been doing anti-extremist work until this day. And one thing I found really fascinating, Nick, is that I asked her, I said, look, you know, with like the equivalent of like BCAD, right? We kind of like carved the world out time-wise through that lens. I'm like, okay, there was like Westboro Baptist Church Megan, and then there's like leaving the church

Megan. And it must have felt so jarring to really feel like you've lived two distinct lives in your lifetime. Like what is that like from a psychological perspective? Do you relate to former Megan? Do you try to detach yourself from former Megan, distance yourself? One, just because it's probably a horrifying thought that you spent most of your young life sowing hate, right, in others. And she said, you know, I try not to actively distance myself from my past, which really surprised Adam Grant, by the way, because he was like, whoa, I would totally just, he's like, I'm always trying to distance myself from 20-year-old Adam because I'm embarrassed by

20-year-old Adam. But what Megan said is, when I keep myself somewhat close to my former self, it is a nice reminder of what it was like to be persuaded by terrible ideas. And that helps sustain the empathy that I feel towards those in my family who continue to be part of this church and those generally in the world that have horrifying views. She said, if I distance myself too much, I will forget what it was like to be persuaded and I will lose that empathy and I will be less effective in my anti-extremist work because I will not relate to that psychology anymore. And I thought that was so powerful and really poignant.

Yeah, for sure. I'm actually surprised Adam would admit to trying to run from that. You know, for example, like... It's easier to do that i get it it's totally easier but you know she she's right are you trying to run away from andy's season and caitlin's season come on well no but truly but you know well that's what i was going to say is that you know i i'm i am like for whatever reason proud of the fact that i i have for example like you, you know, I'll look, we'll use Andy and Caitlin's season example is, you know, after you leave the bubble, you have a different perspective of the bubble. And you're just like, you know, listen, great women, but like, there's no way I should be with either of them. Right. I should be with either of them right at the same time clearly you saw me having very extreme and

vulnerable feelings in that bubble which it would be very easy for me to just say whatever it's a silly stupid tv show like producers this or like yeah but I've never denied that in that moment those were actual feelings I felt, right? Or just, you know, a lot of the advice that I'll give to my audience too, because like I didn't go to school for any, I'm not an expert, but what I have are experiences of saying,

but listen, I've been there. I've been in your shoes. It's my ability to go back to those points, those moments where like, you know, you find the old love letter that you wrote and you're reading, you're like, who is this person? Right. And remembering that you were capable of having these thoughts and feelings is a very grounded feeling to have because it will stop you from, you know, being too biased or feeling like, you know, being too biased or, or feeling

like, you know, cause people will say things like, how could you ever think or feel that? And I think we often forget how, how, you know, we may not be Megan who were, who were part of an extreme church, but we, we, we do change, we evolve. And we, I think it is easy for to get it it's easy to forget who we were in our adolescence or even our young adult life and once we feel growth we we are prone to dismiss all that right because like i'm a very different person now than i was 10 or 15 years ago but i it is really important for me to remember those things because it's it can be very humbling and a constant reminder that if you you aren't looking at those things you can you can go too far the other way and that's what's always interesting about extreme groups like well

you'll talk about like the the far right or whatever with religious religious churches but like i'm a big believer in physics in the sense that, you know, opposites, you know, like if there's, if there's this over here, there's an equal kind of, uh, equal and opposite kind of opposing force. Right. And so, which I'm also fascinated by how many people don't think that like the radical right thinks there's no, like they don't a probably realize they're or think they're radical. Right. But they don't, you know, they, they don't're radical, right? But they don't, you know, they don't think there's another side or the, you know, it's always kind of fascinating. Like you do realize that like, you know, it's fascinating because I grew up, right,

in a very conservative household in Wisconsin and I have a lot of smart and friends who are, you know, associate with the right. And I love those people. And then I move out to LA and I make friends, associate with the right. And I love those people. And then I move out to LA and I make friends who associate with the left. And it's really fascinating for me to like, listen to both because like they both have very strong points of view.

They're both smart people. They both think the other side's stupid. And it's just kind of fascinating, you know, me being a person who's like, I feel blessed to have lived in this world and be a part of another world. And so I'm just kind of seeing what people are saying, but they just don't want to acknowledge or give any space to the other side having some, you know, credibility. It's, I don't know, kind of fascinating. Yeah. And I think if you were to more see, I mean, even on the lighter note, right, if you were to fully distance

yourself from former Nick, and then you go back on The Bachelor, like Katie season or whatever, and you're weighing in, you might be a little bit less kind to the like, slightly arrogant version of the contestant that you're like, oh, at some point, I would, you know, I can relate to that a little bit. I'm not like that anymore. But I just think it helps us build human connections with other people, right? Or whatever our foibles are, it's just good to, like you said, it's good to stay close to them, keep them in check, and then also make sure we're not overcorrecting. I like that. I also like going back to what you were saying before, and I forgot the name you gave it, but- Moral reframing?

Yeah. Yeah. to what you were saying before, and I forgot the name you gave it, but... Moral reframing? Yeah. Yeah. Where the idea, and it's gotta be so hard to implement in real time,

especially when you're talking to someone who you disagree with, to try to empathize and understand what is their driving motivation? What is the value they're holding on to most and to allow them to hold on to that yes all while still you know implementing questions and ideas and and playing to the value that they have like you mentioned like you know it's patriotic to keep the earth you know america

looking clean you know that's a fascinating uh discussion and i'm like how do people implement that into their daily daily lives and and interpersonal relationships because like this is all kind of great and on a macro level but how do we implement it like have you ever implemented something like this with your husband to be like you know i want this so like i'm gonna like what is what what's the value he thinks the most and how do i get him to go see this movie? Yeah, look, I think we all are searching for the silver bullet when it comes to, I want to just quickly change this person's mind.

I want us to quickly see eye to eye. And I think what this research is showing me, the moral reframing work, is that you have to view progress as incremental. I mean, for Megan Phelps Roper, Chris, you might appreciate this story, like it took years for her to, it's not like the first conversation she had with someone on Twitter. She was like, oh, yes, my entire belief system has been pierced, you know,

and I'm thinking new things for the first time. She was so resolute in her convictions that it was going to take essentially the perfect storm to move her in this way. But when people kept at it, and like you said, you don't overthrow the entire belief system on day one because then you're at an impasse immediately. You're not going to make progress. Both sides are just going to feel further alienated from one another. But if you just imagine that you are truly chipping away piece by piece, and when you feel like you've gone too far, okay, I'm gonna take a few steps back,

give them their space, recruit their sense of agency, right, and personal freedom, and then you chip away a little bit more. You know, it's not satisfying to hear you have to put in all that work, but it's also not like Daryl Davis convinced these people to leave the Klan overnight either, right? It is hard work. I would view changing minds as being the most coveted, elusive type of change that exists, period. And it is the most intractable challenge we face as behavioral scientists. We can get people to change their behaviors. We can get people to go to the gym more and eat healthily. Those things are hard, but they're not impossible. But getting people to really change their minds is one of

the hardest challenges that exist. For all the reasons we discussed, which is we attach it with our own identity, we attach it with our group identity. There's so much built into it that it's really, really hard to do. And I think when we approach changing minds with humility, it'll give us slightly more patience than we would otherwise have had. I think that's great too, because I am surprised, and actually Amanda and I were talking about this when we got done with have had. I think that's great too, because I am surprised, and actually Amanda and I were talking about this when we got done with the show. I am surprised by how impatient people are becoming more and more with progress, right? And I understand, especially for a lot of people who are on the receiving end of hate and vitriol and like you just i get the the desire to be like i'm tired of being patient with with progress uh but nevertheless like people

like don't want to like it needs to be this way we're tired of waiting and i've kind of i thought of progress as like uh you know i'm stick shift and driving a car is less and less of a thing but if you know about stick shift there's the clutch and if you let off the clutch too fast the car will stall like you have to like slowly ease off the clutch and that's kind of how I think of progress you if you if you go too fast the car stalls people stop listening when you and then that's when people get frustrated and they will shame you know kind of everything against what we've been talking about they'll get mad they'll start shaming they'll say you're horrible or terrible you know, kind of everything against what we've been talking about. They'll get mad. They'll start shaming. They'll say you're horrible or terrible. You know, why do you think this way? As opposed to, like you said, kind of taking the time to hear something that might be

triggering you don't like, but nevertheless, not go to that place where you get them on the defensive and kind of gradually bring them along. Cause like, and it's fascinating when you think about, you know, progress over time and you look back a hundred years and you think, imagine some of the things that we have in our society now that we all, you know, despite the divisiveness, we all agree with, you know, I don't know what it is. Maybe it's like not having gun duels to solve a fight.

Like a hundred years ago, like kind of a thing, you know, like I disagree with you. Let's take it outside. And if we like, and no one went to jail, you know, like it was a fair fight. Like that's insane. But like 100 years ago, kind of normal thing. And it's kind of fascinating. Like some of those things, you know, take time.

And I think we sometimes lose sight of that. Yeah, look, I mean, my personal view is I understand the urgency. Okay. I mean, I think 2020 taught us all like the state of racial justice in this country is not good and we need to see progress. And I am so in favor and I so support movements that try to accelerate the rate of change and try to move things as quickly as possible. Because look, as a human, I want to see that change overnight. That said, understanding the science of how mindset change actually works, um, sobers me in some way, right? It allows me to see that I can want the same end goal and I want it to happen as quickly as possible, but what are the means to that end? And can I temper my own enthusiasm for seeing progress as quickly as possible, which I think needs to happen from a social justice perspective, given what the science

is telling me about what works or doesn't work. And it's an interesting tension because I don't want any activists to lose their energy and their motivation motivation but maybe it's just a matter of saying okay the urgency exists but let's try to see if we can employ these tactics versus tactics that we know are just less effective yeah wow so many questions do you do any like studies on like like with the individual like i feel like a lot of people are talking more and more about like narcissistic behavior and things like that do you do any studies and stuff like that okay i wasn't sure because i always like when i always have this idea that like i mean i watched the bachelor does that count as doing research on do you think there's a lot of narcissists on the bachelor i mean i didn't

say you did so i'm just i just want how so tell me more no i'm just teasing it's just look you the climate of the bachelor feeds into any um narcissism a person might have and it can accelerate it or exact sorry it can exacerbate in that environment because you are an environment where there's like full-on sensory deprivation right so what i've been told there's like no cell phones you can't see the news you don't get any perspective outside of yourself that's exactly right yeah and then you're an environment where there's huge amounts of scarcity in the air because you're all vying after this one person who everyone has implicitly said is like the best thing since sliced bread um and then because you don't have any other sensory

information coming your way or like any other thoughts to occupy yourself, you spend all your time ruminating about that person. And from a cognitive dissonance perspective, you're thinking, well, I spent so much time thinking about this person. They must really mean something to me. They must really matter to me. And then you just spend your whole time thinking about that person and thinking about yourself and then thinking about the context of your relationship. And I think that can be great at helping people fall in love quickly. It's just that when you lack perspective, it might be harder actually to bring your best self into a relationship because you're not like hearing what's happening in the world every day or you just don't have that vantage point. And that can be challenging, I'm sure. I mean, you were on the show, so maybe you had a similar experience where

you just enter this bubble, like you said, and you're just closed off from the rest of reality. Yeah. I mean, that's really what it is. I mean, I kind of related it to the Stanford prison experiment. And you're right. I mean, and I've told this story i remember especially the first time i was on it i had this conscious almost out of body thought of being aware of the environment i was in all while having what felt like genuine feelings yeah but i was like i don't i couldn't figure out what was real because i just like i know i'm in this world I know it's playing a role and I I can't quantify to what degree it's it's playing the role I know it is I know I like I mean hey she's beautiful she's great we have good conversations like I don't even if I'm in this world like clearly there's a connection there. Right. But like how much,

how, how much is it impacting, you know, like you said, the, the singular focus on her, the fact that I'm clearly competing with peers, like everyone thinks she's great. Remember Bobby, the neighbor who's using less energy than you, right? You're the same. You don't want Josh beating you out. Yeah. So like, and it was really hard to, to, to decide. And it's kind of fascinating, especially the world when people are constantly trying to figure out how much do I like someone? Do they like me? What are ways that people can, if at all, try to understand their own perspective in

any given situation to try to control their bias? Yeah. Yeah. perspective in any given situation to try to control their bias yeah yeah i mean look i it's not even like i think um there are necessarily more narcissists um on the bachelor than in real life it's just that whatever tendencies you have towards narcissism are going to be amplified in that kind of environment yeah and let's take Katie's season, for example. I think there's a ton of really high quality stand-up guys. Yeah, she seems like a good group. Yeah, good group. And I've always felt like I just admire so much people who go through the process maintaining their sanity and even some semblance of perspective because I just imagine

we all fall prey to it. It's just really hard, like you said, to disentangle fiction from reality and to unpack truly what's happening on a psychological level. And I think in part, that's because in the same way that we don't just develop our beliefs or attitudes about the world based on facts, we don't necessarily decide who we like and are attracted to just based on who they are. We definitely take contextual information into account. Things like scarcity and minimizing cognitive dissonance and all those other factors we just talked about, which are playing out in the bachelor bubble world, can have a profound impact on how much you believe you like someone or how much you believe you love somebody. And it can be very hard to disentangle those things because these are multiple factors that

are all playing around in your mind. And yeah, it's just hard to be an objective scientist about it all. I mean, I certainly wouldn't be able to be an objective scientist. I'd just be like, no, I think I really like the person, full stop. Totally. Well, we olivia brian was our guest uh last week uh and she talked she just kind of threw out uh you know if whoever is sleeps at the person's house has the power relationship and i actually it was like i've never thought about that and then we put it on tiktok and it created like such a buzz for people and i was actually surprised by the amount of people who didn't want to acknowledge that power dynamics exist in relationships at all it's just like that's kind of what early stage dating is in terms of like kind of who has the power like if you're wondering

or feel insecure about someone's interest level in you or even if you've been dating that there's a power dynamic there do you study you know kind of the power shifts between people in relationships all that much and how that plays a role i don't stick to decision making so not a relationship expert but doesn't doesn't decision making have to do with how much power you might feel or not feel yeah look i think the the reality with behavioral science is that because it is literally studying the entire human condition we do have our subspecialties and so there are genuine relationship experts that i think would speak better to the the power dynamics but yeah i'm not i i feel like that's uh i would just be bsing you if i were to try that one

i appreciate you yeah always gonna be honest about what I know and don't know. So in terms of, and again on your podcast, you talk about a change of plans, right? So for people, especially early in life, we grow up in these households and our parents will instill these values and we'll be like, I want to be this when I grow up. And then they get out into the life and they meet other people. How can people feel confident decisions to be open to changing the direction of where their life goes, right?

If they feel stuck in a place where they don't feel any fulfillment, it can be scary to change their mind, whether it's a belief system or a religion they're a part of, or a job that they have? What are some things that people can do to give themselves confidence in changing their mind or changing their path as they go into the world? Yeah, it's a great question. And I think the first thing I'd share from creating a slight change of plans and getting to have conversations with really fascinating people, is that no one is really immune to that fear. And we've all, it seems like we all experience that kind of trepidation. And when I say all of us, I mean, even people like Hillary Clinton. So I remember I was interviewing her for the show. And this was also similar for Tiffany Haddish and Casey Musgraves and Tommy Caldwell, this badass climber. And Hillary was talking about the fact that when she left the White House as first lady, she had felt very tethered to her husband's identity.

Right. And she had been advocating for women to run for office and assume leadership positions and whatnot. She was out there telling everyone to do this. And then she was at a Sporting's event that was meant to encourage more women to join athletics. And a basketball player leaned down and whispered into her ear, dare to compete, Mrs. Clinton, dare to compete. And she said it was an astonishing moment for her because in that moment, she realized that maybe she was too afraid to run for office herself. She'd been telling all these other people, you should run, you should run, you should run. She's like, but I'm not sure I have it in me. I'm not, I mean, Hillary's telling me, I'm not sure I'm good enough.

I don't know if I have what it takes. I don't know if people will like me. I don't know if my personality is good enough for this insane world of politics. And one, that was a wonderful reminder to me that these successful people we see in our lives who have navigated lots of change, they didn't come out of the box that way, right? They had to go through their own personal journeys and development and identity creation over time. So I think just the basic reminder that it plagues all of us can give us some confidence around our own sense of resilience. The bigger one is that people are natural born storytellers, which means when they confront an unexpected or expected change in their lives, whatever their spiritual or non-spiritual beliefs are, I don't believe things happen for a reason, by the way,

I don't think the universe cares about me at all. Yeah, I believe we can find opportunities. I believe we can try to find silver linings and my own psychology does try to build a narrative around my life to make sense of tragedy, to make sense of things that I don't want to have happened and to find meaning in it. And I actually think that's helpful for us to recognize because for someone like me who knows

that I don't think things happen for a reason, it can fill me with even more fear in the face of a big change because I'm not going to be able to say, I'm sure that was meant to teach me something or I'm sure, you know, I don't have those beliefs. But knowing that it is just a core part of human nature to build a narrative out of change and experience and to try to become a better person from it, to try to grow, to try to almost justify the thing that's happened to me, that gives me some type of psychological relief,

if that makes sense. That my mind will kick in and help aid me through the process. Totally. I couldn't agree with you more. That's something that i've had to change in my belief system growing up in in the house that i did but i think it's because i'll ask people like do you believe everything happens for a reason i might say yes or do you or do you think things can work out like any situation can work out i think every situation can work out. I think every opportunity can work out if you're willing and able to learn from it.

It doesn't mean you are going to learn from it. There's no guarantee. Like if something bad happens, you might not learn from it. You might be so closed off. But the willingness to try to learn from it will allow you like a breakup or getting fired from a job.

It wasn't meant to happen, but you still can find a silver lining if you look for it, or if you want to learn, like there must be a teachable moment somehow. And it's like, if you can focus on that and not think it's preordained, then that you will set you up to have it actually be of some benefit.

You just can't assume it's going to be. Yeah, you have to work harder actually in some ways to make sure that a good thing could happen from it. So like a good example is I interviewed for a slight change of plans. I interviewed a guy named Scott and he's a self-proclaimed health nut. So he's in his 30s. If it's in a book somewhere, Nick, he's done it. So like high intensity interval training,

intermittent fasting, he's a vegan, he adds turmeric and chia seeds to his food. He's also a cancer researcher. And in 2020, despite basically devoting his entire adult life to his health, he gets a stage four bone cancer diagnosis, cancer diagnosis. And within weeks, he has to get his right leg amputated, has to move to MD Anderson for inpatient, like 18 administrations of chemotherapy. He has to get a vertebra removed from his spine and other surgeries as well. So Scott's worst nightmare happens.

And he doesn't believe things happen for a reason. We were able to bond over this, right? And say like, no, I think it was just a shitty situation. I mean, that's my objective assessment of the situation. It might not be nice to hear that, but that's just how he and I were coding this together as we were, he was in the middle of his treatment as we're talking about his philosophy

on these sorts of things. And then, but his very analytical brain kicked in and he said, you know, Maya, it would be a shame if my body was deteriorating and my personality also got worse. So I'm committing myself to becoming a awesome person from this process. Like I've already seen growth. I feel like I've noticed that like my happiness levels are kind of stabilizing in this interesting way. And I feel like I'm a more empathetic person. I'm more compassionate. I'm starting to see my core identity as more, he's the phrase negotiable

than I did before, you know, before he really attached it to like his body and his physique and health. And that's taken away from him. Right. And he's like, I'm starting to see that, like, maybe those things I thought were core to me, they don't have to be. And so I was so moved by this interview because I'm talking to someone who, again, doesn't necessarily believe things happen for a reason, but his natural psychology is kicking in. And he's like, I need to justify this in some way, right? I need to find an opportunity for growth in this. And I think I found across the board that the people who thrive the most in the face of change don't fall prey to this concept in behavioral science

called identity foreclosure. And what that refers to is the idea that we can get really fixed in our sense of self early on, especially in adolescence, but it can continue through adulthood. And then we don't explore all the other opportunities we have to define ourselves or our identities. So for me personally, I was a violinist as a kid, took it really seriously, was on track to trying to go pro, and then I got injured and overnight I'm no longer a violinist. And I, in that moment, had to think about my identity as far more malleable than I did before and to try to have to figure out other paths that I could take in life. And that served me well to view my identity as more malleable because it means that I'm able to better navigate the twists and turns that life has presented my way ever since. super traumatic childhood, she has this understanding that she can be many people in this lifetime. And she can identify maybe one constant, namely the superpower she has to make

people laugh. But at the end of the day, she's willing to assume multiple identities. And that seems to be a common trait, people's willingness to see themselves through multiple lenses, in terms of an ability to thrive in the face of change. Yeah. I mean, it made me kind of think of like a common story you see like with professional athletes when they retire, like their identity is always wrapped up in that one thing. But I think, you know, even if you're not a professional athlete, like that will happen to us. We'll get fixated on a certain thing. athlete like we that will happen to us we'll get fixated on a certain thing um you know my friend ben higgins uh you know he's been in the news lately talking about kind of this what feels

like a shift for him right in terms of you know having been off tv for a while and there's a pressure of you know taking advantage of this kind of opportunity some of us are given and um and how that can be a very challenging thing to like feel like having an identity shift and like worrying about what people might think of you or the pressure like is that something you study in terms of like especially if we're going through a change the influences the outside world will play a role in terms of like how we perceive is will i be accepted if i try this thing like you know being a violinist at an earlier age so who am i going to be disappointed am i disappointing myself my parents my friends or whatever um or you know for me it was you know here i have i have this podcast i like talking about relationship dynamics and

and people ask me questions and i'm very quick to say like, I'm not an expert, but I'll tell you what I think. But, you know, being painted as the guy who was unlucky in love for four years, like that was like an uphill battle for a while. I'd be like, oh, by the way, no, like I actually have something maybe interesting to say. I'm not a total loser. And that can be a challenge. And sometimes I've even felt that where it's like, I don't even want to try because I know I'm going to face resistance from the outside world. I love that question. It's making me think about two different things. The first is a concept called identity priming. It refers to the idea that when we associate ourselves with a very specific identity and give ourselves a label around that identity, we act in ways that

align with it. So if I think of myself as like a voter, I'm more likely to vote. If I think of myself as charitable, I'm more likely to donate to charities. But if you think of yourself as a failure in love and you give yourself that label and other people give you that label, it can be really problematic when it comes to departing from that identity and feeling freed from other people's expectations. So I'll give you a concrete example of this. When I was working in the Obama White House, I worked on reentry guides for people who had formerly been incarcerated. And as I'm working on redesigning this guide, I'm noticing that like there's certain language in there that's potentially problematic. We're referring to people as ex-convicts, ex-prisoners, formerly in prison, that sort of stuff. And if you give people those labels, they carry those labels with them. So we ended up scrubbing the

reentry guide so that folks are referred to as job seekers, community members, right? They're having this fresh start in life and you want to give them every resource, psychological or otherwise, to thrive in this new environment that they're in as they transition back to civilian life. And so I have always felt that the labels others give us and the labels we give ourselves, sometimes those can be very powerful and productive if they're positive labels and they align with our aspirational identities. But sometimes they can really hold us back.

You know, Jay Shetty was interviewing me for his show yesterday and he was saying that he was a rebel in high school, you know? And when he went to college, it was the first time he felt he could depart from that rebel identity because everybody in his life was thinking, Jay's the rebel, Jay's the jokester who gets into trouble and does all this stuff. And you feel like you need to uphold that identity at all costs. And that can stagnate potential progress. The other thing that's making me think about, and again, I love your question, is in my

life as a violinist. So I was very passionate about the violin. When I was nine, I started studying at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. And when I was a teenager, Itzhak Perlman asked me to be his private violin student. And he was my violin role model. He's, in my mind, the best violinist in the world. And so it was an incredible vote of confidence. And I was very, very serious about it. And then, like I mentioned, overnight,

I get a devastating hand injury and I can never play the violin again. What I learned from that experience was to unpack what it was that I loved about the violin versus trying to too closely attach my identity to the instrument itself. So I think as a kid, I used to think, oh, I love the way it sounds. I love like the way that it feels. Actually, the thing that made me fall in love with the violin is that I could so quickly forge an emotional connection with people I'd never met before. So imagine like even as a young kid, you're going on stage, there's thousands of people in the crowd you've never met before. They haven't met you. And within moments, you're making them feel something that they haven't felt before. You're changing their

psychological experience. And it's very powerful to connect emotionally in this way with strangers. And I realized that that was the part that was intoxicating for me. It was this human connection piece. And it was understanding what it is that I could do with the violin to make people feel things. And when I identified those traits in this pursuit, it allowed me to find those traits in other spaces too. For example, studying the mind, right? I'm studying human connection. I'm studying how we make decisions. I'm studying what biases we have and how our emotions affect our decision making and all that stuff. And then through my podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, I've licensed to get into a room with a total stranger, like I was mentioning the Hillary conversation and say, hey, Hillary, we just met.

But what was the hardest moment of your life? Or like, what's your biggest insecurity? And I can just ask them that. And so it's, again, an instantiation of getting to forge a deep emotional connection. So for listeners who are going through a tough change or have been told they can't do the thing that they love anymore, they're forced to retire or what have you, try to figure out what are the features of the pursuit that I loved and then let me see if those coexist elsewhere in the world

through some other domain. No, I love that. I mean, because yeah, like what's motivating you because it might not be the very thing that you think it is. Yeah, or like the physical thing, the physical version of that. And maybe it's something as simple as the validation and attention that it might bring

or what you can give to other people or a combination of both. And yeah, find the other things in life that you are interested or good at that can kind of help kind of lead that change into your life and let something else go. That's really great. I know you have to get going. Before I let you go, as a behavioral scientist, we do need your take and someone who's also a Bachelor fan on who you think Katie will pick and who you think she should pick. Oh my gosh, I feel like she's so taken by so many people.

Maybe that's what makes her a good Bachelorette. Is that you can't really tell? Well, I think she likes Greg the most. Yeah. Yeah, no. Greg is my vote, but then I also listen to the Bachelor podcast and she's done a pretty good job

at maybe misleading us a little bit about the fact that like, oh, maybe it's going to be an underdog that emerges later in the season. But I think, okay, if I had to put money on it, I'd probably go with Greg at this point in time. That she's going to or thinks she should? Who do you think, as a behavioral scientist,

who do you think this might last the most? I think Greg's going to break her heart. Well, I feel like the promos are teasing that. Yeah. And when Katie was on this podcast, she suggested that someone does break her heart and I can't see it be anyone else but Greg. Yeah, but Greg.

I think she thinks she should pick Greg. Yeah. And then I think she might be best suited with someone like Connor. Who she already sent home. Oh, see, I'm not fully caught up. Okay, see? Sorry, spoiler alert.

Guys, you should definitely take my advice and my forecasting. We'll cut that out. Wait, who's the, I'm forgetting the names. You know, I really, did she already send home the dad? Not yet. Michael, she's gonna send him home.

I think he's next on the chopping block. He's on the chopping block. In fact, by the time this episode comes out, I predict Michael will be gone. Because I think she wants to sleep with Justin. I have to say, I'm using imperfect information. I am behind. All right, that's okay.

I'm three episodes behind. Oh my gosh, so much has changed. I know. So anyway, let's just cut this. I don't want to lose all my credibility with a shitty recommendation. It's just The Bachelor. You're allowed to.

I know, I'm just teasing. You're allowed to be wrong. Maya, thank you so much. I could ask you so many more questions. It's such a fascinating discussion and I appreciate you giving us your time. Please let my audience know where they can, again, listen to your podcast,

your social media, and just other things that you have going on. Yeah, so my podcast is called A Slight Change of Plans and folks can listen wherever they listen to podcasts. So Spotify, Apple, iHeartRadio. And if they do like the show, rate and subscribe and share if possible. And then our Instagram is a slight change

and Twitter is slight change pod. I'm still trying to resist the social media thing, Nick, by not having my name be the Twitter and Insta account. So we'll see how long that lasts. For some of the reasons we described, because I don't want to feed that part of myself. It's tough.

Yeah. Thank you so much again. And thank you guys for listening. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, review, all that fun stuff. I sent Connor home. Sorry, this is still blowing my mind.

Yeah. I haven't seen their one-on-one date, so I'm assuming that's when things blew up in flames. She called him a bad kisser on TV. Wow. That is brutal. He's such a nice guy. Katie's harsh.

Katie's harsh. Thank you so much, Nick. No problem. Don't forget to send your questions at asknickatcastmedia.com, cast with a K for our Ask Nick episodes, and we will see you back on Monday.