The Art Of Conversation For Making Friends - David Robson

1. 0:00 – 4:09

   Are We in a Loneliness Crisis?

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      Are we in a loneliness crisis? What does the data say?

   2. DRDavid Robson0:05

      Yeah. I mean, you see this, like, everywhere. Like, I think every week, there's a new, like, newspaper article saying that we're in this kind of loneliness epidemic. And, like, there's no doubt that, like, the surveys show that lots of people feel lonely. Like, as many as 50% of people feel, uh, pretty lonely, like, at, you know, regular points in their lives. Um, so yeah, it is a kind of crisis. But whether this is like a new phenomenon, that is really up for debate. Because if you look back at the historic data, which is imperfect, but you can go back like 60, 70 years, um, and people were reporting high levels of loneliness back then too. So even though I'm sure that like some elements of our society today are kind of driving people apart, you know, like people don't live in their families so much, often we're kind of based in, you know, different continents even, um, people are living alone a lot more, like I'm sure all of that is super relevant but I don't think it's the only reason that people are feeling lonely. And I think, like, the research really shows that there must be some kind of psychological barriers. You know, like the problem lies within us as much as in our environment, and that's why people have felt lonely for decades, centuries potentially.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:15

      Oh, that's interesting. So there's a, like an ambient level of human loneliness that's just endemic to being us, and then we have this sort of new world of technology and, and atomization and isolation and, and, and digital communication and stuff, and maybe a lot of people are laying what is a much more sort of ancestral, archaic problem at the feet of the new technology. Is that kind of how you frame it?

   4. DRDavid Robson1:42

      Yeah, exactly. You know, like, um, every time a new technology comes along, like we blame it for everything. Um, so you know, like, back in like Jane Austen's time, like people were saying that reading novels was like driving the youth into like madness. Um, you know, so I think like technology, you know, like our cellphones are just tools. Um, they can be used to enhance connection or they can be used to, um, kind of just engage in social comparison and make us feel really shit about ourselves compared to other people. But the tool itself isn't the problem. It's the way we're using it. Um, so that's where I'm coming from really, is, is all about kind of mindfully knowing like how we handle our relationships that's important.

   5. CWChris Williamson2:21

      Yeah. I think, eh, to me, I would say there is a step change in the power that these devices have over us compared with previous ones. You know, yes, maybe the wireless in 1912 or something was, "These kids, they're just gonna be listening to the news all day or whatever." And then the te- uh, no, the television as well was a, a huge concern, especially when it was in more households. "This is gonna turn everybody into sort of addled, totally useless citizens." Um, I do think that there's a step change. I do think that social media and smartphones are a, a difference of kind, not just a difference of degree, of what we're talking about here. But, at the same time, how easy and convenient it is to now have a legitimate excuse, a, a, a genuine enemy that you can say, "This, this is why I don't connect with people the way that I want to. This is why I don't have any social, uh, depth with the people that are around me. This is why I don't seem to be able to find a deeper meaning in my relationships." Um, it's the boogeyman. It's like the smartphone of the gaps for all of your social ills.

   6. DRDavid Robson3:28

      Yeah, it totally is. I mean, like, you can blame it on the technology and you can just kind of take this attitude that is, you're kind of helpless, um, to solve your loneliness, or you can look at the kind of psychological literature and actually, like, what's come out in the last like five or ten years is that actually there are lots of things that we can do to enhance the relationships that we do have, or to build new relationships, which is often a lot easier than we expect. I mean, that's something that comes out in the literature all the time, that we're probably much better at being social and, uh, kind of having these authentic, deep relationships than we believe we, we, we are. We just have to know how to do it correctly.

2. 4:09 – 9:33

   How Important is Social Connection?

   1. DRDavid Robson4:09

   2. CWChris Williamson4:09

      Just to set the scene, how important is social connection?

   3. DRDavid Robson4:16

      I mean, it's so important. So, I think like we all know, you know, it's nice to kind of have a group of friends who you can rely on and to have like meaningful relationships with your family, like to live with a spouse or a boyfriend or girlfriend. Um, you know, like we know, I think everyone knows that that's super important for kind of mental health and happiness, but what has become so apparent is that social connection is fundamental for your health. I mean, accumulating evidence from 50 years, uh, shows that it's actually one of the big predictors of mortality. So, you have things like smoking, drinking, your BMI, um, whether you do exercise, uh, you know, whether you're kind of, uh, taking care of things like your blood pressure, but social connection is right up there with all of these. It's as important, if not more important than all of these other co- uh, core lifestyle factors. Um, so you really can't actually overestimate how important social connection is. It's, you know, it's just fundamental to living a good and healthy life.

   4. CWChris Williamson5:20

      Yeah. I was looking at some of the different, uh, correlations that you'd found, immunity, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's, neurodegeneration. So, like friendships are the panacea. They're the, the ultimate cure to whatever it is that ails you.

   5. DRDavid Robson5:37

      Right. Yeah, exactly. I see it as being like exercise. You know, like exercise basically reduces your risk of, like, all illness. Um, social connection is pretty much the same. And there are really strong evolutionary arguments for why that is, and essentially, um, when we were kind of, you know, in pre-history, it was like w- we were living in nature that was really dangerous with the threat of predators or other groups who might have attacked our group. Like, you really had to...... have a solid alliances with the people around you. So if you were excluded or if your ties were quite weak, um, you were in danger. So the body, um, first of all, it evolved this kind of strong signal to kind of, uh, warn you that something was up and that you had to remedy that. So in the same way that you feel physical pain to kind of warn you that you've got a wound that needs to be tended, you would feel social pain to warn you that your relationships really aren't, um, as secure as they need to be to keep you physically safe. So that's why loneliness is so painful emotionally. Um, and then we also... that is accompanied by a physiological reaction as well. So you see an increase in inflammation because if you're, um, isolated, you're at more risk of injury so you have this kind of low level inflammation that's gonna, um, protect you from infection if you do get injured. You have, like, a higher, higher levels of blood clotting factors, um, which would stop you losing blood if you're attacked. Um, inflammation and blood clotting, like, might be good in the short term if you do have a wound, but actually in the long term they're gonna increase your risk of things like Alzheimer's or a stroke or a heart attack. And actually those... stroke and heart attack are, you know, the two things that are most strongly linked to loneliness. Um, and you can really see the mechanism is, like, so, um, so totally bound into our kind of evolutionary history.

   6. CWChris Williamson7:31

      So I... e- everyone that's listening has been red-pilled about a lot of evolutionary psychology. They understand that a human on its own 50,000 years ago is a human that doesn't survive for very long. So, I think everyone can understand the ultimate reason for why loneliness would hurt, right? From the ultimate proximate-

   7. DRDavid Robson7:49

      Yeah.

   8. CWChris Williamson7:49

      ... um, uh, paradigm. The mechanism is something that I didn't know about, and that is so cool. What are some of the other mechanisms me-... 'cause this is, you know, big question that I had. Why do friends make such a difference? Like, what... our body's got some weird Facebook friend tick counter thing in the back of its mind?

   9. DRDavid Robson8:10

      Yeah.

   10. CWChris Williamson8:10

       Like, wha- what's it doing to detect this? What's being mediated by the people that are around us? That mechanism thing to me is, is really important.

   11. DRDavid Robson8:19

       Yeah. I mean, it's so fascinating and it's still being kind of researched and, um, kind of developed, this theory. But, you know, you can see in other social animals, like even rodents, you know, kind of do depend on living in groups, um, that they have these kind of loneliness neurons that are a little, a little like the areas of the brain that deal with hunger. So it's like you feel s- um, satiated after you've eaten, so your hunger kind of decreases and then it increases when you're gonna run out of energy. Well, it seemed to be the same with, um, the loneliness neurons. That it's like when you've been apart from people for a while or if you feel, you know, isolated from th- those who are around you but you just don't feel close to them, um, it seems those, uh, loneliness neurons become more active. Like, they're kind of telling you, they're giving you this warning, like, "You need to tend your relationships." And then when you've spent time with your friends or your family, uh, it kind of... the loneliness neurons, like, stop firing so much, um, until you, uh... you know, until you're kind of in that danger zone again. So yeah, we are keeping track of our social connection, um, very tightly. Automatically, it's kind of a, a low level desire, just like hunger, thirst, like all of the other things that we need to survive.

   12. CWChris Williamson9:32

       Lots

3. 9:33 – 13:40

   The Expectation Effect in Loneliness

   1. CWChris Williamson9:33

      of people will say, "I don't need anybody. I'm a lone ranger. Maybe I've been in friendships before and I've been betrayed. Maybe I've tried to make friends and I've really struggled. Um, I don't even care about the world. I've absconded, I've gone full Ted Kaczynski mode. I'm out in the w- equivalent of the digital woods, you know, in my apartment or whatever." Um, how much are these effects of loneliness outside of our conscious awareness that we feel lonely? Do you know what I mean? There's some people who will not be around many people and go, "God, I, I, I just really do feel lonely. The solitude is hurting me," and then there's other people who either, uh, genuinely or, uh, sort of, um, deceptively don't have that sensation. Is it your belief that pretty much everybody's brain is still playing the ticker sort of loneliness neuron thing, is firing regardless of whether you think, "Fuck the world," or, "Actually, I really want a lot of friends"?

   2. DRDavid Robson10:30

      Yeah, I do think it's like that. I mean, I think, like, you know, pretty much everyone is gonna need, needs some kind of level of social contact. I think it differs depending on whether you're, like, introverted or extroverted for what that kind of social connection will look like. So, you know, some people I think are very happy with having, like, 100 kind of weak ties that they see, like, semi-regularly, um, but they maybe don't have such a close bond with each one of those. Um, for others it might be important just to have, like, their spouse or one close friend, um, who they really rely on. But I think fundamentally some kind of social connection is this kind of basic human urge. Um, I do kind of see, looking at the literature and kind of reading between the lines, that, um, there might be some people who, like you say, they're kind of neglecting this basic need in the same way that someone with an eating disorder might kind of start to neglect their need to eat. So you can isolate yourself and it's almost like you, you just stop listening to the kind of brain or the body's signals-

   3. CWChris Williamson11:37

      Mmm.

   4. DRDavid Robson11:37

      ... for what you, uh, desire. But then your mental health is gonna suffer in other ways. You just might... you might not be linking it to that cause, but I think there's no way that you're not gonna suffer some consequences from that.

   5. CWChris Williamson11:50

      Yeah. I was, uh... I was trying to sort of correlate it to your last book, The Expectation Effect, which everybody needs to go and read, by the way. Fantastic. Um, I was wondering whether the story that you tell yourself about your degree of loneliness mediates this sort of loneliness neuron activation and the, the platelets being m- closer to coagulate, all that stuff.

   6. DRDavid Robson12:14

      I think it probably does, a little bit. Like, um, because say like we know that you're kind of attitudes to stress in general can have an influence on how you kind of physiologically respond to that stress. So if you see stress as being this kind of thing that, um, makes you stronger and is important for growth, you have a better physiological response than if you see stress as being super dangerous and like, um, bad for your health, bad, and a sign of failure. Um, so I do think like when we experience these kind of, uh, transient periods of loneliness, I think our, like mindset is gonna have a role there. Like you could see, um, like I think, you know, no matter how strong your social network, like sometimes you're gonna f- still feel a bit rejected by people, like that your friends aren't always gonna act in the way that you want, and you can kind of catastrophize that and you can start to tell yourself that, like blame it on yourself and see yourself as being totally unlikable and, you know, something inherent within you. That's not gonna be as healthy as if you just kind of take a more philosophical, like stoical approach to that, and, and accept that sometimes loneliness is a part of the human condition. And you can recognize the loneliness as this kind of core signal, a bit like physical pain, that's telling you that maybe you have to nurture your relationships in other ways. So if you've been let down by one friend, like maybe it's time to reach out to another to kind of get that connection that you're missing.

4. 13:40 – 18:13

   Impact of Loneliness on Creativity & Finances

   1. CWChris Williamson13:40

      What was the relationship between creativity and finances with loneliness?

   2. DRDavid Robson13:46

      Yeah, I mean, so this is a whole other mechanism by which, um, uh, social connection might be related to, uh, our health, because it actually, when we're socially connected, we become more creative, um, because if you're surrounded by loads of different people of different backgrounds who have different viewpoints, um, you have this kind of cross-pollination process where like their ideas feed into your ideas and vice versa, and then that plays out in how innovative, uh, you are as an individual and as a group. Um, so you can see that in data from like the creators of Broadway musicals, for example. You sometimes had, um, groups of like the choreographers, uh, composers, lyricists who only worked together in very small, isolated groups. Um, they tended to be less successful, like as seen by like the critical success, how long the plays ran, um, how, like how much money they took in.

   3. CWChris Williamson14:47

      Mm.

   4. DRDavid Robson14:47

      They were less successful compared to some of these groups who would like, um, they were a bit promiscuous in who they would work with. So they would be, work with like one group for one production and then go on to another, but they were just carrying so many different ideas from all of the people they'd worked with. Like they had this kind of broader professional network and then that seemed to help them to break the kind of norms of the genre so that they became, um, more creative in what they were producing. And something like, um, West Side Story seemed to come out of that kind of, uh, very collaborative process where you actually had people who had already worked with a whole bunch of other professionals before they joined that particular group. Um, and then you know, if you have, if you're more creative, you have more, um, financial security often because you're doing better at your job.

   5. CWChris Williamson15:35

      Mm.

   6. DRDavid Robson15:35

      Um, if you're well connected, you know, you just see more opportunities for business, so that gives you better financial security. If you're made redundant, um, you know, like something like in the UK, like 50% of, um, people found their job through like an acquaintance, um, so it's easier to then kind of get back into employment. So that, you know, all of that is good in itself but it's also just relieving you of like some of the biggest stresses that you're gonna have to face in your life. Um, so independent, independent of the kind of loneliness response and what that's doing to your levels of inflammation and the clotting agents, you're also just better to, uh, better equipped to deal with all of the challenges that you're, you're gonna have to face.

   7. CWChris Williamson16:19

      And that's a, uh, cycle, a feedback loop as well presumably, that y- poverty, for instance, is a reliable inducer of stress into a human's life. If you drop into poverty...

   8. DRDavid Robson16:30

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson16:30

      There's this great, um, study that I learned about to do with, uh, epigenetics, uh, for mothers, and they did this study, Robert Sapolsky talks about it, he did this study where, um, women who entered poverty during pregnancy, and you can see this, uh, like epigenetic cascade into the child, into the, the fetus, and if that child is a female, that child has every egg that they are ever going to make a baby from while they're inside of gra- what will be grandmother who has just gone into poverty. So you end up with three generations of this epigenetic... It's so interesting. So yeah, this sort of interest. It's like, um... It kind of like stabilizes in a way, just sort of robust, i- increase in robustness.

   10. DRDavid Robson17:19

       Yeah, that's exactly how I see it, it's just that you, you know, like if you fall ill and you've got someone to take you to the hospital, um, like that is something that could potentially increase your lifespan as well. Um, we know, you know, when people are socially connected, they're also just more likely to kind of take care of their health because they're, they get that kind of feedback from other people who might be saying like, you know-

   11. CWChris Williamson17:41

       "Fucking hell, David, you've gained a bit of weight," or whatever it might be.

   12. DRDavid Robson17:43

       (laughs) Exactly. Yeah, no, totally it's like that or like, you know, if you've got like a cough or whatever that won't go away, like you really do need to get that seen to if you're living by yourself.

   13. CWChris Williamson17:51

       Right, yeah, the denial of your own medical issues is harder if there's someone watching you.

   14. DRDavid Robson17:56

       Yeah, that's exactly it. Um, so, you know, it's just so fundamental but like you said, it's like we have, when you're connected, you have these kinds of, um, like stabilizers that mean that even if you hit a kind of rocky road, like you're just better able to right yourself more quickly.

5. 18:13 – 25:21

   Quality or Quantity of Friends?

   1. DRDavid Robson18:13

   2. CWChris Williamson18:13

      Is it the number of...... of friends? What, uh, uh, are some connections more important or higher value than others? How should we think about connect- our connection balance sheet or the, the profit and loss account?

   3. DRDavid Robson18:26

      Yeah, I mean, so it's gonna vary from person to person in kind of what connections you really value. Like, I, I know some people who, um, you know, just love, like, having a huge social network of people that they aren't so close to. Others, are happier with just having, like, a very small but tight-knit group. Um, but even within those connections, like, you can kind of differentiate. So you have the people who are purely supportive, so, you know, they're always there for you when you need them, um, and they're like an un- an unallied good. Like, they're just gonna... You know, like, you want as many people as you can of those. Then you have the purely aversive people, who are kind of, you know, like, consistently nasty, um, like, you know, we would tend to avoid them-

   4. CWChris Williamson19:14

      Right, 'cause I- I've been saying-

   5. DRDavid Robson19:15

      ... and we kind of know what to expect.

   6. CWChris Williamson19:15

      ... I've been saying friends-

   7. DRDavid Robson19:16

      Yeah.

   8. CWChris Williamson19:16

      ... but you're talking social connections, and social connections can be both good and bad.

   9. DRDavid Robson19:21

      Yeah. Right, yeah. Well, they can. That's it. So I mean, like, um, you know, those people, I guess, we would try to, like, shift out of our social network, but then there's these people who are kind of in the middle, um, the kind of ambivalent relationships or frenemies, and what is weird about those is we might keep them in our relationship for our- in our kind of relationship network for our whole lives, um, but they're pretty bad for our health actually if you have too many frenemies. Um, so these are kind of, you know, Jekyll and Hyde figures who, like, might seem like your best friend one day, then they're in a bad mood and they'll, like, lash out at you the next. But the good kind of might outweigh the bad, so you, you don't want to just like fall out with them and like exclude them from your social network completely. Um, but what the research shows is that they can actually be more stressful for you than the purely aversive, like, consistently nasty people. Like, you know, if your boss is just always, like, difficult with you, you kind of can discount what they say. If sometimes they're praising you and then another time they're just unreliably really critical, that's like, um... that raises your blood pressure a lot more basically. So even just knowing that you have, like, uh, an ambivalent connection in the next room as you and that you're gonna have to interact with them, that is enough to raise your blood pressure.

   10. CWChris Williamson20:40

       So, is it the uncertainty? Is that what's causing it to happen?

   11. DRDavid Robson20:43

       Yeah, it's the uncertain- it's totally the uncertainty, and it's because they're nice enough to us that we actually really care what they say. We're not like, um... we, we are not gonna ignore them in the same way that we might ignore, like, your, like, horrible uncle who's just gonna be critical, like, whatever you do.

   12. CWChris Williamson21:01

       How can people recognize or learn to recognize frenemies better?

   13. DRDavid Robson21:06

       So I think, like, there are... I think it... Like actually, the questionnaires are pretty easy actually to kind of... so I put them in my book and it's basically like, when you need help, is this person, on a scale of one to seven, helpful? Or like, not helpful at all, very helpful, and, uh, not hurtful at all or very hurtful. And essentially, if someone scores more than two on both of those scales, they are a frenemy, and then the research shows that they're actually, mm, like, pretty bad for your health if they, uh... if you have too many of those frenemies within your group. Um, yeah. So I think, like, we can... I think we all know people like that, and I'm not saying that we should just like, um, detoxify, but I think, like, we can be mindful of the way that we interact with them. So like, if you're already feeling stressed, like just avoid an ambivalent connection. Like, don't go to them for help. Um, if you have to see them, like try to do something like to kind of chill out afterwards. Like, try to exercise some self-compassion. Like maybe just even, like, just remind yourself of the fact that like, you know, of their nature, that they are this ambivalent connection and that you don't have to take what they say so personally, because that's, you know, that's on them. That's not on you. I think all of these things can help to mitigate their effects.

   14. CWChris Williamson22:28

       So it's kind of like a, a lowering of expectations in some ways.

   15. DRDavid Robson22:33

       Yeah.

   16. CWChris Williamson22:33

       That your... The unpredictability comes about because some days they convince you that they're potentially a good friend, but then many days they come and they're a dick or they're aloof or they're not responsive or they're mean or they're not helpful or whatever it might be.

   17. DRDavid Robson22:51

       Yeah.

   18. CWChris Williamson22:51

       Um, so just bringing down the expectation of the good, like, and this is the reason why your boss that's just 24/7 a cantankerous person is, well, you know, it's, it's Jim. Do y-: you know Jim? Jim, he's just Jim.

   19. DRDavid Robson23:04

       Right, yeah.

   20. CWChris Williamson23:04

       He just, that's the way he goes. Um, but the guy that flip-flops between, you know, Jim and John is the more difficult one, so by just, okay, everybody's Jim now. Everyone that's ambivalent is Jim, and I lower my expectations and therefore I don't, I don't get surprised when that happens.

   21. DRDavid Robson23:18

       Yeah, I mean, that's how I see it. That's kind of how I deal with my own kind of ambivalent connections, is just to be... to recognize that like I don't have to like... they can react however they're going to, but I don't have to actually engage with that in the same way that I did before. Like, I can choose to kind of discount their kind of unpleasant side because it's... you know, that's their problem with the way that they're conducting their relationships. It's not a reflection on me.

   22. CWChris Williamson23:45

       What do you mean when you talk about the personality myth?

   23. DRDavid Robson23:49

       Yeah. So this is the idea that, um, I think a lot of us have, that, um, you're like, you, you kind of think either you're like a super social person or you're not, and there's not much that you can do about that. So you might just think it's like my shyness, my introversion that just stops me from, um, talking to strangers or enjoying parties or, um, making new friends, you know, when I move house to like a different city. Um-... and the research shows that that's actually not true. And so you... A common idea is that introverts just aren't gonna enjoy being gregarious, but actually when you give introverts challenges to kinda go out and chat to someone in the park every week who, um, every day, you know, who has a cool dog or cool hair or, um, you know, just make conversation with the ba- uh, barista in your coffee shop, so things that they would normally find a little bit uncomfortable. Like, to start with, they have this strong prediction that they're really gonna hate those interactions. Like, everyone, y- including extroverts, tend to be a bit pessimistic about how much they're gonna enjoy talking to a stranger. Like, we kind of assume it's gonna be more awkward than it really is. But introverts kind of s- think that because of their personality, like, that's gonna be especially true for them. Um, and then you look at how they feel afterwards, and they enjoy it just as much as the extroverts. They actually really benefit from the social connection in exactly the same way.

6. 25:21 – 33:31

   Categorising People as Introvert & Extrovert

   1. CWChris Williamson25:21

      How much truth is there in the introversion-extroversion, introvert-extrovert dichotomy? I'm sure that you've-

   2. DRDavid Robson25:29

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson25:29

      ... dug into this and looked at the data and sort of debunked the bro science.

   4. DRDavid Robson25:34

      Yeah. I mean, so I do think, like, um, people do kind of fall along that spectrum. Um, I guess most people are ambiverts, who are a little bit extrovert, a little bit introvert. You know, like, we... I think most people enjoy socializing, um, and recognize that fact, and then... but also enjoy a bit of solitude as well. Like, once those loneliness neurons have stopped firing and you've got your fill, you can go away. Like, we... You just don't have the same appetite as someone who is, like, a pure extrovert. So, I do think there are individual differences along that dimension, but, um, what the research shows is that, like, no matter where you lie on that dimension, you do benefit from just becoming a bit more social than you currently are, or most people do. So, even extroverts can benefit from being a bit more social, but especially introverts can. Um, and that... Our personalities, like, they're not necessarily hardwired in our genes. Like, we do have genes that influence whether we're introvert or extrovert, but it's not like they seal our fate. Like, people can move along that spectrum just by kind of practicing, uh, being more grega- uh, gregarious, being more, um, uh, kind of dominant in certain situations. Like, you know, we're not... It's not like our genes kind of determine our personalities, like, 100%.

   5. CWChris Williamson26:58

      What would you say to the person who feels that they're the prototypical avatar for the "I struggle to make new friends, I find it hard to be gregarious, I'm not the loudest person in the room, or maybe I, you know, just got a little bit of anxiety, I'm in my own head, I'm very thoughtful." Um, what, what do you say to them to help them get out of their own skin a bit?

   6. DRDavid Robson27:22

      Right. So I totally think it depends, like, how they feel about that, like, how they kind of evaluate the effect that it's having on their life. Like, I think, you know, like I was saying earlier, some people probably do just have less appetite for social connection, and if you're actually pretty happy with the way you are and you don't feel frustrated, then there's no need to change your behavior. But I think lots of people do feel frustrated and would benefit from more, um, acting more socially, and they believe that they can't because of their personality. And so I would say to those people, actually, that is where the personality myth is really a barrier, and that you need to overcome that by just kinda slowly pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. Um, and, you know, like, I think the best way to do this, it's kind of proven in psychology, is to set these implementation intentions. So, it's all very well to be like, "Oh, yeah, I'm, I'm gonna be more sociable today." Like, that's a really vague goal. It's not gonna help you achieve that goal very much. So, it's much better for you to kind of identify, like, when and how you're gonna go about that. So, it could just be that you're telling yourself, like, "When I'm at the supermarket and I see someone struggling to carry their groceries, I'll just offer to give them a hand," or, "You know, I'll just... Instead of just asking, like, straight for my coffee, like, I will just try to ask the barista, like, how they are, you know, how their day is going, like, just make some kind of small talk." And what the research shows is that when you do that repeatedly, even over quite a short time span of, say, five days, even by the end of that five days, people are already changing the way they perceive those interactions. So, they no longer expect those interactions to feel, um, awkward, and they expect to enjoy them, and then they do enjoy them. So, you know, I think it's just something that we do have to practice kind of day after day and recognize that, um, you know, it's a learnable skill. It's like learning a musical instrument. Like, you have the potential to be sociable. You just have to put in a bit of work to practice those skills.

   7. CWChris Williamson29:32

      Wow. Five days to make... to start to reframe that. I suppose so much of what people are worried about is some odd catastrophic outcome. "I'm gonna ask the barista at Starbucks how their day's going, and, and then the police are gonna come in," or, "They're gonna laugh at me," or, "I... It's gonna be weird," or whatever it might be.

   8. DRDavid Robson29:55

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson29:55

      So, I... It's almost like, I guess, exposure, uh, training. You know, it's just like that.

   10. DRDavid Robson30:00

       Yeah, yeah. It totally is. Yeah. It's like overcoming any kind of phobia. Um, so, I mean, you can't ever guarantee that there's never gonna be someone who is unfriendly, but, like, what I love about these experiments where they've got like, you know, hundreds, sometimes thousands of people to...... enact these behaviors, is that it is so rare for people to have a really bad experience. Like in the first couple of studies, like just no one reported having, like, hostility kind of thrown back at them when they tried to talk to strangers on, like, uh, the Chicago buses and trains or on the London Underground. Like pe- people... Even, like, the London Underground has, like, a really bad reputation for people being really unfriendly and isolated and not wanting to make conversation. But, like, people responded much better than anyone had expected. And I think, like, each person maybe on the train is kind of sitting there, you know, some are happy in their own thoughts, others are kind of feeling a bit lonely, and they're just waiting for someone to kind of strike up the conversation but they're not brave enough to do it. So a lot of people are actually super grateful when you're the one who kind of takes the first step and kind of, you know, opens your mouth to speak.

   11. CWChris Williamson31:15

       Why is overcoming egocentric thinking so important?

   12. DRDavid Robson31:21

       Uh, yeah. I mean, so this is one of the kind of barriers where, like, we... I guess the work on, like, the personality myth kind of shows that, like, we're all better at making connections than we think we are. But that doesn't mean that there's not room for improvement. And so egocentric thinking is one of the ways that sometimes we do needlessly create a kind of misunderstanding between people. Um, so essentially, uh, all neurotypical people have the, uh, they have the capacity to... uh, they have theory of mind, which means that you can kind of put yourself in another person's, uh, shoes and take their perspective and recognize, you know, like, um, that they might have different opinions or knowledge from what you yourself have. Um, now the problem is that even though we have that capability, uh, it's quite hard cognitively to do. So far more often than I think scientists had expected, people don't apply their theory of mind. They act super egocentrically and just assume that, like, the other person that they're talking to can see what they can see, knows what they know, thinks what they think, has the same beliefs. Um, can understand their intentions even when they're super ambiguous, um, in what they're saying. Um, and you know, I think we're quite robust in our interactions so there's a lot of correction that goes on in any conversation when you're kind of, you know, there's a bit of m- misunderstanding and then, like, uh, it soon comes out with, like, by asking the right questions or just by kind of elaborating that allows the two people to kind of fully get on board with, with what they're saying. Um, but just by being conscious of this fact that you might be thinking egocentrically and just kind of checking, like, does the other person actually understand what I'm saying? Like, are they familiar with the terms I'm using? Do they have a completely different political opinion that I just haven't given them a chance to express? Um, you know, just doing those kind of little, like, safety checks in your conversation can just, like, smooth over the conversation so you're not making those kind

7. 33:31 – 44:10

   Developing the Art of Conversation

   1. DRDavid Robson33:31

      of fundamental errors.

   2. CWChris Williamson33:32

      Yeah. What else did you learn about the art of conversation? Presumably a lot of what we're talking about with regards to human connection is going to be mediated through it, so it's a, a pretty s- key skill to develop.

   3. DRDavid Robson33:43

      Right, yeah, it is. So, I mean, asking questions is fundamental. Something that is kind of well known is that you should ask more questions when you kind of meet someone for the first time, like don't talk about yourself. But I think what we often misunderstand is the importance of the follow-up questions. So you could go into a, a conversation and you could just be, like, asking... It could be like an interview almost. You're like, "What do you do? Where do you come from? Do you have a wife?" Like, you know, like, "What's your favorite sport?" Like, um, fine. Like, you're showing a- an interest in the other person, but it does feel a bit formulaic. Whereas if they tell you something, like, a bit quirky and then you, like, drill down on that and you just follow up by asking, like, what they meant or, like, why that thing is so important to them, like, you know, what joy or pleasure they get out of this activity that they've just described. Like, those are the ones that really matter. And so you look at, like, um, people on speed dates, um, and, like, the amount of follow-up questions that people ask, like, really predicted whether they would actually be selected for a second date. I mean, like, if you asked enough follow-up questions, it doubled your chances of getting a date, basically. So it's well worth bearing that in mind. Um, the other thing that we should really, uh, bear in mind is, like, it's good to ask questions but we also need to be quite generous with what we're telling the other person too. Um, so self-disclosure, like revealing your own kind of deeper thoughts and feelings is super important as well. And we have this kind of bias in our, um, conversation where we, we think it's always safer to just talk about, like, you know, the superficial stuff. You know, like those kinds of questions I was talking about earlier, like what profession do you do? Where did you grow up? Um, what did you do at Halloween? You know, that kind of stuff. But, um, but actually when scientists have forced people into these conversations where they... Like two strangers have to ask, like, super probing things like, um, "Do you have an intuition about how you're gonna die?" Or-

   4. CWChris Williamson35:43

      (laughs)

   5. DRDavid Robson35:44

      ... like, "What is your... what is the most embarrassing thing that you've done in your life?" Or, "What's your biggest mistake and why do you wish that you could correct it?" You know, not the usual kind of stuff that we would talk about, like, within 20 minutes of meeting someone. But, um, that is called the fast friendships procedure and, like, I mean, the name says it all, but I mean, it really puts people on this fast track to intimacy. Like within about 45 minutes those people feel closer to each other than they do to some of their oldest friends, which is kind of amazing.

   6. CWChris Williamson36:18

      Just take us through high level what the fast friends procedure consists of.

   7. DRDavid Robson36:24

      Yeah, so I mean, it's kind of asking those probing questions. But, I mean, basically the... It was developed by Arthur Aron at, um, a psychologist in New York. And essentially, he just got these participants to kind of, total strangers, to sit down with 36 of these questions, um, that got progressively more kind of intimate. Um, like there's nothing kind of dodgy or sexual there, but I mean, it's just, you know, asking people, like, to kind of, uh, to look inside themselves and reveal something that they might have felt too embarrassed or vulnerable to talk about. Um, so fears, dreams, uh... You know, another one that I love is like if you had a crystal ball, and it could tell you, uh, anything about your life or your future, um, what would you want it to tell you and why? So it's kind of getting people to really tell some- something that might have been secret beforehand or, you know, something that they're scared about potentially, you know. It just kind of, it's a, a kind of, uh, ambiguous prompt in that it's not forcing someone to go in any particular direction, but what you choose is super revealing about what's going on in your, uh, kind of inner life. Um, and yeah, so then he kind of tested like how people... how close these participants felt at the end of this 45-minute conversation, and compared that to people who just went through kind of normal small talk on, you know, like, uh, "What's your favorite film?" Or, you know, could be... I mean, what... Talking about your favorite film could be super revealing, but most people just aren't gonna go into enough detail or depth to really make it, um, sufficiently, uh, profound to kind of build that connection. And, you know, so the people who did... who went through the fast friendship procedure, yeah, they, at the end, like he tried to get them to estimate how close they were to each other with this, um, uh, psychological test of like... um, of the relationship strength. And then he compared that to how, uh, people normally feel about like their old friends from their childhood or from university. And he found that already the kind of average friendship between these two strangers was roughly at the same level.

   8. CWChris Williamson38:45

      How funny. It's, um... You know, when you see those Netflix documentaries, and it's some person that was part of a famous historic event, they caught a ball at a sports game or their daughter went missing on holiday or they did whatever, and they're always in some dusty warehouse somewhere. And I always thought when these people were being interviewed, I always just presumed that they'd told this story a million times, that so many people were interested in their story and had asked them these questions. But then you see on these Netflix documentaries, people get very emotional, and tear up and, and, and struggle to complete their sentences and stuff like that. And that made me think, "Well, actually, they probably haven't had that many people to tell this life story to." How many people in your normal day-to-day existence actually decide to go to that place and give you a, a canvas to talk about deeper things that maybe you, you don't usually think about or talk... and maybe you've never talked about it before, not because it's, like, shameful, but just it's a bit odd or no one's ever seemed to be patient or given you the space to be able to do it. And, uh, yeah, that kind of made me think like, you know, this is ob- evidently one of the biggest things that's happened in someone's life and it's still so emotionally charged. I, I have to assume that that's because they haven't got... that this isn't the hundredth time they've said it.

   9. DRDavid Robson40:09

      Yeah, exactly. I mean, so like when you kind of question people about stuff like the fast friendship procedure, um, most people, when you ask them, like, "Why are you nervous about talking about these topics?" Like, what you, you've t- Like, this psychologist would be like, "You've told me that you think it's going to be awkward, but why do you think it's going to be awkward?" And then, like, people just assume that it's, um... that no one cares. Like, no one wants to hear about their inner life or this kind of event that was so profound for them. And I guess it's almost because that event was so important for their life that it's like the rejection would hurt so much more if they told it. If the other person was just like, "Oh, yeah. Anyway, you know, you'll never guess what happened to me yesterday."

   10. CWChris Williamson40:56

       (laughs)

   11. DRDavid Robson40:56

       Like, you know, like... (laughs) And maybe that will happen in some cases. Like, with all of these things, there's no, like, hard and fast guarantee that it's going to go in the way you want, but the numbers are really in your favor. Like, you... These conversations are n- uh, on average, going to be so much more rewarding for you than you expect. Like, that's what the research shows, that if we were just a bit braver, we would find, like, so much more reward from all of our social connections.

   12. CWChris Williamson41:24

       The other thing to consider is who says that a person's negative response to you opening up is a you problem? Like, you want to be around people to whom you can have deep conversations and talk about important things and play with new ideas and open up parts of yourself that you don't do typically. And s- it's so strange, this ability to make ourselves the bad guy in, in scenarios, especially social s- "Oh, that's because of me. I'm so awkward, I'm so stupid, uh, uh, you know, I'm so clumsy," um, that, you go, "Hang, hang on a second." Like, if someone had said to you this thing, would you have been interested?

   13. DRDavid Robson42:02

       Yeah.

   14. CWChris Williamson42:02

       Actually, yeah, probably. That'd be pretty cool. It'd be pretty cool to find out about, you know, that, the, the, this thing that they've held with them from childhood that's very powerful to them. I would have been interested and I would have asked questions. Okay, and why did that other person not... Well, I don't know, they're just- they're socially ungainly. Okay, so it's not you that's done the social faux pas, it's actually them in their response to you. This is a them problem, not a you problem.

   15. DRDavid Robson42:26

       Yeah, that's exactly it. I think like, um... Also, it could be, and I think this comes back to the, uh, egocentric thinking that we were talking about. Like, it could be that the other person really was interested in what you were saying, and they assumed that you knew how interested and how much they cared, like how interested they were and how much they cared. And they just weren't communicating that correctly because of this egocentric assumption that it must have been written all over their face. And so that's what comes out of that research on egocentric thinking is that we, we're really bad at judging how strongly our emotions are being communicated 'cause we feel them quite strongly. We assume that other people will also be able to read them. And that's true in all kinds of situations. Like if you're lying, you assume that the other person can tell when you're lying but you're not really giving away so many tells that they can. Like, if you find, if you're at a dinner party and you, uh, find the food pretty disgusting and you feel like super self-conscious because you're worried the host is gonna kind of see that disgust all over your face. Like, scientists have actually set people up to have that exact experience.

   16. CWChris Williamson43:35

       (laughs)

   17. DRDavid Robson43:36

       And like, it's completely undetectable. Like you can't... (laughs) No one can guess better than Chance whether someone's eating something disgusting or whether they're eating something, um, you know, really delicious. Um, and so I think that's happening here in these conversations that, um, sometimes like people just aren't, like, letting you know what you really need to hear but they might still be feeling it. So, there's no point in us, like, beating ourselves up over not getting quite the response that we expected 'cause we just don't really know what that person was feeling often.

8. 44:10 – 48:33

   How to Express Appreciation Better

   1. DRDavid Robson44:10

   2. CWChris Williamson44:10

      How can people express appreciation more effectively?

   3. DRDavid Robson44:14

      Yeah, I mean that's so... Yeah, that is something that we can all do to strengthen our connections is to just avoid this, uh, ambiguity that people have. Like, we are generally, um, not very good at, uh, saying compliments 'cause we just don't do it enough. Like, I think there was some... I can't remember the exact statistic but like we bite back the majority of the, like, nice things that we think about other people 'cause we assume that they know it already or we think we're gonna be so clumsy we're gonna sound like really ingratiating and, uh-

   4. CWChris Williamson44:50

      Fawning. Sycophant. Yeah.

   5. DRDavid Robson44:52

      Fawning. It's... Yeah. You think it's gonna be awful. (laughs) So, so we just think like, "Okay, I'm just not gonna say anything at all. That will be better." And again, it's like you're protecting yourself. Like, 'cause by expressing a compliment or appreciation or gratitude you're kind of making yourself a little bit vulnerable. Um, but like those fears are totally unfounded. Like, people, they just really love to hear good things about themselves as you would and, like, as... Again, it's like, like you said, like if you just turn it around and think, well, like, would I want to hear that, like, um, I look great today or that I said something really smart. Like, of course you would.

   6. CWChris Williamson45:30

      Yes.

   7. DRDavid Robson45:31

      So why do you assume the other person wouldn't? Um, so yeah, just we can do it more often, expressing gratitude and appreciation. Um, and what the research shows is like it benefits the other person a lot but it also benefits the person expressing those good feelings. So actually, once we've said something kind, um, we feel better ourselves. And even like, um... It's good for us physiologically, like it actually reduces our stress response. Uh, so there was this, uh, study that was inspired by Shark Tank, the TV program where students had to kind of come up with a product, um, give a presentation like in pairs. And the researchers told like just one person in each pair like, "Just, you know, express gratitude to the person who, uh, is helping you with this." And then they measured like how they responded to the, to giving the presentation itself, like how their kind of blood pressure, their cardiovascular system responded. And what they found that both the person expressing and receiving the gratitude, uh, tended to show like a more muted str- uh, stress response. So they just... Um, they were still like kind of charged and excited but they weren't going into fight or flight essentially.

   8. CWChris Williamson46:46

      Wow. How cool. Yeah, that's something that I've noticed since moving to America. Uh, you may say that Americans have too much enthusiasm and that may be true.

   9. DRDavid Robson46:58

      (laughs)

   10. CWChris Williamson46:58

       Uh, but I think that Brits have the equivalent scarcity as Americans have abundance.

   11. DRDavid Robson47:03

       Mm.

   12. CWChris Williamson47:03

       And, um, there was this... When I first moved out here two and a half years ago, um, I got invited on a really big, uh, podcast. It was the- (laughs) It was Tim Pool's show on the day that the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict came down. So it was gonna be... I think there was 300,000 concurrent live viewers at one point. It was fucking insane. And I'd got invited to go and, and be on the show, and it just happened to be the day that I was there. I'm like, "All right, well I guess I'm commenting on the Kyle Rittenhouse thing now." And, um, I'd only been in the city for two weeks, maybe three weeks, and I'd made some friends before but largely these were just friends that I'd got... And in between me leaving the apartment, the Airbnb I was staying in, and going down to get picked up by the car that was coming to get me, two different guys rang me that I'd met over the last sort of three weeks and both... Separately, both basically said the same thing. "Hey man, just wanted to let you know, I know you might be a bit nervous about tonight but you're gonna smash it. Like, I've got pizza and, and me and the missus are gonna sit on the couch and we're gonna watch it. It's gonna be so cool. How are you feeling? I'm really happy for you." And I was like, this is such a, a, a lovely gesture from someone that didn't need to do it, from someone that you kind of barely know. Um, and it, it felt really alien and that was one of the big, "Oh wow," you know, that you can say that, you can behave in that way.

   13. DRDavid Robson48:23

       Mm-hmm.

   14. CWChris Williamson48:23

       The sort of zero-some Puritan tall poppy Brit in me sort of bristled a little bit and didn't really know how to take it.

   15. DRDavid Robson48:30

       Yeah.

   16. CWChris Williamson48:30

       But yeah, it's, um, it's a, it's a really big

9. 48:33 – 58:29

   Why You Need More Self-Compassion

   1. CWChris Williamson48:33

      deal. I suppose...... the other side of expressing appreciation is self-compassion, and you looked at self-compassion too.

   2. DRDavid Robson48:43

      Yeah, so I think self-compassion is, like, super important in kind of all the things I'm talking about, um, because it's like you were saying that we often... Like, if there's any awkwardness in a conversation, like, we just tend to put the blame on ourselves. Like, if you have met a stranger and there are, like... You know, you say a few clumsy words or there's that kind of weird silence where neither of you knows what to say or, like, you don't quite know when to finish the conversation. Like, you think, like, "That was wholly my fault. Like, I should have been more socially fluent and able to just, like, seamlessly kind of, you know, exit that conversation and go on to the next one." Um, you know, the other person's feeling exactly the same way.

   3. CWChris Williamson49:27

      (laughs)

   4. DRDavid Robson49:27

      So that is a phenomenon called the liking gap, which means that when we both, um, have a conversation with a stranger, like, each person tends to go away thinking that they liked the other person more than the other person liked them.

   5. CWChris Williamson49:41

      No way, so that sh- that shows up in the data?

   6. DRDavid Robson49:45

      Yeah, yeah. It's really consistent. (laughs)

   7. CWChris Williamson49:47

      The liking gap?

   8. DRDavid Robson49:48

      Yep. So that, in itself, I think, uh, should lead us just... You know, once we know those statistics, like, we can just stop, like, beating ourselves up so much. Like... Uh, because actually... So what's happening there is that it's like we are s- again, it's, like, egocentric, we're so conscious of how we've behaved, um, that's, like, kind of burning in our minds if we think we've said, like, a faux pas, and so we assume that it was equally important for the other person. But they really aren't taking much notice of that. Like, they don't really care if you're, like, the perfect conversationalist who's always got something, like, super witty and apposite to say. Like, what they are more likely to do is just think about the overall, uh, kind of emotional tenor of the conversation, like, was-

   9. CWChris Williamson50:36

      It's just vibes. It's just vibes, man.

   10. DRDavid Robson50:38

       Yeah. Right.

   11. CWChris Williamson50:38

       It's always been just vibes.

   12. DRDavid Robson50:40

       Exactly. Like, was I laughing a lot? Like, did they kind of validate what I was feeling? Like, were they curious about me? Um, you know, that's what really matters, like, your warmth, not your confidence. Um, so we can all be just a bit more forgiving of ourselves. And, like, sometimes we will say a faux pas, but most often we won't, and it's just not worth the kind of mental energy to become too fixated on that. 'Cause even if you did, the other person... Like, so that's the other thing, that even when you make a definite faux pas, like you turn up to a dinner party and you're the only person who hasn't brought, like, wine or cake or anything, um, you ask people to judge how they would... uh, to rate how they would judge another person for doing that, like, how negative they would be. And then you get them to rate how they think the other person is- would judge them for the same thing. And consistently, people assume that the other person is gonna be twice as negative as they would be-

   13. CWChris Williamson51:37

       (laughs)

   14. DRDavid Robson51:37

       ... for the same thing. So even if you make a faux pas, it, like, really isn't such a big deal. Like, it's just... it's so forgettable.

   15. CWChris Williamson51:46

       Isn't it interesting? You, you know the fundamental attribution error bias?

   16. DRDavid Robson51:50

       Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson51:51

       So, um, somebody cuts you off in traffic, it's because they're a dangerous wanker. You cut someone else in traffic, it's because you need to really get to work because you're late and there's an important meeting. Like, we have this sort of, um... We often attribute other people's actions to their personal motives, whereas ours are more to do with external events and we're not... we're, you know, we- we- we're able to-

   18. DRDavid Robson52:13

       Yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson52:13

       ... not be as culpable. And it's like a reverse fundamental attribution error in social situations-

   20. DRDavid Robson52:20

       Yeah.

   21. CWChris Williamson52:20

       ... whereby we will always be the awkward, clumsy, social faux pas victim, uh, and everybody else is a competent, smooth James Bond talking person that, that, you know, won't forgive us, but that we would forgive them. It's a very odd way that we sort of turn the bar stool upside down.

   22. DRDavid Robson52:39

       Yeah, it's... I mean, it's crazy, actually, because, like, if you ask people, like, "How smart are you compared to the average person?" Like, most people overestimate how intelligent they are. Or, like, "How good a driver are you?" Or, you know, like, uh...

   23. CWChris Williamson52:51

       70% of people say that they're better-

   24. DRDavid Robson52:54

       Yeah. (laughs)

   25. CWChris Williamson52:54

       ... than average. (laughs)

   26. DRDavid Robson52:54

       Right, exactly. And yet, if you ask people, "How smart do you think other people think you are?" So you're kind of shifting that to, like, to a question of social judgment, then people are really under-confident. So it's like we- we're constantly kind of thinking the best about ourselves, but also assuming that other people are thinking the worst about us, um.

   27. CWChris Williamson53:18

       Wow. How interesting. Yeah, I, um, I learned a lot about this comfort with vibes and imprecision, even though I- I'm quite obsessive about precision when it comes to speech. When I started the show, I thought that my goal was to be kind of a- like, a ruthless indexer of information, kind of the ultimate Blinkist app for whoever I was speaking to, and it was just to break down all of the different things in this new book or whatever, and then that would be it, and it had to be said in the most precise and accurate way possible. And then, as you go on, when I think about the sort of conversations that I enjoy listening to or the ones that I enjoy having, it's more just about vibes. It's, was it fun? Did it flow well? Was it charming? Did we have a laugh? Did everybody feel comfortable and casual and... And that's really what it is. And in an equivalent way, I did a, a live tour toward the back end of last year, so standing up on stage in front of between 500 and 1000 people. And I'd seen a few friends do performances, much bigger ones, comedians and stuff, and their mics would break or the lights would go out or someone from the audience would yell something, and you might think, "Oh, that's going to ruin the flow of the show," or, "That might get them off their game," or, "Oh my God, how awkward that the, the mics died." And-... it made me so much more warmly disposed to them, to see how they dealt with something that went wrong. And they did it in a charming way, or maybe they said something wrong and they forgot the line, or they tripped over, or they spilled water on themselves, and all of those things. There was no such thing as a social faux pas. There was simply dealing with an occurrence in a charming or an un-charming manner, and if you dealt with it in a charming manner, even if you did it to yourself, it made me li- it's the, it's called, what's it called? The pratfall effect, um...

   28. DRDavid Robson55:13

       Yeah.

   29. CWChris Williamson55:13

       Which, when someone messes up, if the, y- you end up liking them more, as long as they can kind of style it out in a not totally socially ungainly way. So yeah, it... Oddly, social faux pas can be a breeding ground for perhaps social excellence, in a way.

   30. DRDavid Robson55:30

       Yeah, totally. I mean, I totally think it's like you said, it's like how you respond to the error, um, the like, the perceived error is more important than like the error itself. Um, uh, and you know, like even stuff like, uh, you know, like people really overestimate like how important like showing a few nerves are gonna be, like in an interview, um, or on stage. Um, but when you question like observers, like, you know, "What did you think of this performer?" And you know, like w- some of them might have been like touching their face a lot 'cause they were nervous, or like, you know, biting their nails, whatever. Um, those people were actually considered to be much more likable than the people who gave like a super smooth performance.
10. 58:29 – 1:03:12

    The Novelty Penalty in Storytelling

    1. CWChris Williamson58:29

       the novelty penalty? What's that?

    2. DRDavid Robson58:32

       Hm. Yeah. So that is, um... I mean, it's like so familiar for most people, I think. Like, you know when you've been on like, um, you've had an amazing experience, like you've, you know, been on a great holiday, and you get home and you wanna tell like all of your friends about it. Um, and then like you're ten minutes in and you can see their eyes glazing over. Like you're just not getting the interaction that you want. Um, that's the novelty penalty, 'cause um, essentially people often prefer to hear stuff that is already a bit familiar to them, um, rather than something that is totally new. And like the researchers found this in this kind of, uh, kind of quite complex, uh, setup where they gave people like YouTube videos to watch and then they got one person from the group to describe the video. And they found that people much preferred hearing about a video they'd already seen compared to hearing about a video that they hadn't seen. And it's totally bizarre because it's like you'd think it would be boring to you to hear repeated back to you what you just observed. Um, but the problem is we're just like, maybe our stories, our storytelling skills just aren't up to scratch, so we're leaving a lot of gaps in the, uh, kind of narrative, and so it just isn't that obvious, like why do I, like why should I care about this? Like you forget to say kind of what really attracted you to that experience and why it was so personally important to you. Like you give the kind of maybe some of the irrelevant details while skipping like the emotional content, um, and so that's what we need to do, I think, to be better conversationalists, to avoid the novelty penalties, to again like lean into that self-disclosure and not be afraid to say kind of why something matters to you.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:00:20

       Hm, to get a bit of personal investment. I had a guy called Mr. Ballen on the show a couple of weeks ago. He's probably one of the best storytellers on the internet. He does strange, dark, mysterious, sort of tr- true crime adjacent stuff. And it was really cool, he explained... He does, does this story, uh, he does a number of stories, does one of them, and then he explains his approach to storytelling-... using the story that he just told and breaking down why he said things in this way. And (clears throat) a really cool insight that I learned from him was the power of omission. So when you're telling a story, there's one about, uh, a, a lamp. This guy who is in a marriage for years and years and years, and then this lamp in his living room starts to behave very strangely. And it turns out, after, uh, th- his protracted story of all of this stuff, that he was hit in the head during a high school football game and was knocked out for five seconds but lived an entire different life-

    4. DRDavid Robson1:01:23

       Oh, wow.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:01:23

       ... and then came back round and was-

    6. DRDavid Robson1:01:25

       Yeah.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:01:25

       ... no longer married to this person for two decades, didn't have his kids, didn't have his dog, didn't have his house, didn't have anything, and had imagined this entire other life that he felt he'd lived for, you know, decades and decades. And, um, but he doesn't say that bit until the very end.

    8. DRDavid Robson1:01:43

       Yeah.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:01:43

       So, you know, there's this sort of ever escalating anticipation about he's getting sort of stranger and stranger and stranger. But if he'd opened up the story by saying something like, "I'm gonna tell you a story about a guy who was hit in the head in high school," like-

    10. DRDavid Robson1:01:55

        (laughs)

    11. CWChris Williamson1:01:55

        ... you know, that completely punks the game and takes you to the end before it's started. Um-

    12. DRDavid Robson1:02:00

        Yeah.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:02:00

        ... so just thinking about how consciously and, and dextrously he looks at hi- th- the art of storytelling, not just conversation but of storytelling, and yeah, what are you including, and what are you excluding? And maybe saying, "You know, and this is how it made me feel, and this is-"

    14. DRDavid Robson1:02:22

        Yeah.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:02:22

        "... why it was really important to me." Like, create some fucking stakes in whatever-

    16. DRDavid Robson1:02:27

        Yeah.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:02:27

        ... it is that you're talking about. Why should someone care?

    18. DRDavid Robson1:02:30

        Yeah, exactly. And I think, so what we kind of maybe underestimate is that what people will care about is, like, um, the emotions that we're feeling and, like, you know, if they're connected to us, they kind of want the best for us. So if something was super important, they kind of really want to understand that bit. What they don't care about is, like, your kind of journey to or from the airport (laughs) or, like, um, you know, like, um, maybe they don't even care much about the details of the location itself that you've been to if you're on this amazing holiday. What they really care about is, like, like, you know, did that fundamentally change your perspective on your life in some way?

    19. CWChris Williamson1:03:08

        How did it make you feel?

    20. DRDavid Robson1:03:09

        Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

11. 1:03:12 – 1:10:56

    Does Lying Ever Have Value?

    1. CWChris Williamson1:03:12

       What is important about truth and lies and secrets?

    2. DRDavid Robson1:03:17

       Um, so this really surprised me, um, and it's the fact that, like, honesty just is almost always, uh, valued. Even if you're delivering bad news to people, even if it's not necessarily, like, reflecting well on yourself, um, even if it's the kinda situation where you would normally tell a white lie to save someone's feelings, um, like kind of sugarcoating some negative feedback, um, there are very few situations where telling a lie is ever gonna pay off. Um, which seems kind of, like, amazing in that I kind of had sh- assumed that, like, things like white lies are kind of, um, a social lubricant. Like, you just need them to kind of get along each day. But these researchers in the US kind of, they set people out on a mission to kind of either be as honest as they could be in every single interaction for a few days or to be as kind as they could be in an interaction, in every interaction for a few days, or to just carry on as normal. And what they found was that the people, the wellbeing of the people who were kind or honest were pretty much the same actually. But what was especially noticeable was that the people who were being, like, sometimes brutally honest with people, um, tended to report that their interactions were far more meaningful. Like, they felt that they learnt a lot more about those people and that those people learnt a lot more about them when they were, you know, like, saying some uncomfortable truths compared to people who were going around, like, with the specific intention of, like, trying to be as kind as possible and to make people feel as good as possible. Um, so that, yeah, I mean, that's changed the way I deal with, like, a lot of my interactions now. Like, it's not a pass to, like, be kind of just, like, rude and nasty, like, because there's, I think in almost every case there's gonna be, uh, a kind way of telling the truth or, like, a, like, pretty blunt and nasty way of telling the truth. So it's always better to kind of try to frame what you're saying in a way that can be constructive, that will help the other person to learn from what you're saying, rather than, um, just being, like, too over-generalizing in a way that is not helpful for their growth. Um, so yeah, be specific, try to be constructive, try to offer advice or your own time and resources to help them to deal with the kind of negative feedback you're giving. But overall, people will fu- uh, will appreciate far more the negative feedback that can be useful over a white lie that isn't gonna help them to learn and to grow.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:06:00

       How can people overcome the discomfort of telling people the truth even if it's going to be painful for the truth-teller?

    4. DRDavid Robson1:06:07

       Hmm. So I think that is just practice actually. I think, like with, a bit like with the kind of overcoming the awkwardness of talking to strangers, I think it's about recalibrating our expectations. And you can only do that by kind of repeatedly performing this action and recognizing that the outcomes are, you know, on average far better than you expected. And over time, you just naturally start to recognize that the kind of little bit of awkwardness that you're gonna face is worth it for the kind of rewards at the end.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:06:40

       Yeah, I suppose it's the same sort of exposure training thing that I can tell the truth and the whole world doesn't blow up-

    6. DRDavid Robson1:06:48

       Right.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:06:49

       Okay. Well, maybe I can do it again. Um... Yeah, it's-

    8. DRDavid Robson1:06:52

       Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's exactly that. And I guess I'd start out with like small kind of e- like the low-hanging fruit, I guess, is one way that I would deal with all of these social dilemmas is that, you know, you- you build up maybe to something that's gonna be much harder, but...

    9. CWChris Williamson1:07:08

       Hmm. I wonder if there's a... I- I spoke about this a couple of months ago. There's a- a website still up called 100 Days of Rejection, and it's, uh, a kind of exposure therapy, social exposure therapy. And each day you do something. Um, you ask the barista at the coffee shop if you can have this for free, you see if a stranger will give you £100. You do... It's just a- a sort of ever-changing group of different things, and some of them are so toe-curling, like so awful and painful to do. And I think so much of what you're trying to do there is just teach yourself this thing that you are adamant is going to be socially explosive is probably totally fine, and, you know, with the truth as well. I suppose the other side is that if you're holding on to secrets for too long, ultimately you're the one that's gonna pay the price. Yeah, sure, the other person, you know-

    10. DRDavid Robson1:08:01

        Hmm.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:08:01

        ... might be upset about it, but it's you that's got to vacillate about this complex house of cards that you've built up trying to keep said secret away from someone, and you can relinquish that by just saying it.

    12. DRDavid Robson1:08:15

        Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think you'd written about this in one of your newsletters actually, that it's like, it is better to have like an authentic, meaningful connection with someone who likes you for who you are than to kind of no matter how good the relationship seems to be, if you know that you're hiding something really important and you're always scared that they're gonna reject you for that thing that you're hiding, like that in itself is something that is gonna lead you to feel that kind of existential isolation. So you don't actually f- you're like surrounded by people, but you don't really feel like emotionally connected to them. Um, so yeah, I f- I totally agree with that. And actually, and there's lots of good research anyway showing that when you keep secrets in your mind, like it's some kind of going to these kind of awful things that you're hiding, um, uh, you actually experience it almost like a physical burden. So when people are primed to think about a secret that they haven't told, uh, the people they love, um, they actually like physically overestimate like how steep a hill is gonna be to climb, or like if they're like throwing a ball into a target, like they'll overthrow because they kind of assume that their strength isn't as great as it would have-

    13. CWChris Williamson1:09:27

        No way.

    14. DRDavid Robson1:09:27

        ... as it really is. Yeah. So it has, it's like embodied cognition that changes the way you navigate the world, like everything feels more tiring than it should be.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:09:36

        Hang on. So someone that is holding onto a secret when given a ball that they need to throw at a target, on average they overthrow the ball...

    16. DRDavid Robson1:09:48

        Yeah.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:09:48

        ... compensating for a perceived weakness...

    18. DRDavid Robson1:09:52

        Yeah.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:09:53

        ... by... And- and that is a, what was the term?

    20. DRDavid Robson1:09:55

        It's like embodied cognition.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:09:57

        Embodied cognition. Dude, you find the best studies.

    22. DRDavid Robson1:10:03

        (laughs)

    23. CWChris Williamson1:10:03

        It's so much fun. Uh, yeah, how crazy to think about that, that, yeah, this sort of inner fragility that they have manifested in themselves, the shame that they probably have about not being able to say this thing. Oh, well, my- my real world strength must be equivalently, uh, like feeble, therefore I must throw the ball harder, and they end up-

    24. DRDavid Robson1:10:27

        Yeah.

    25. CWChris Williamson1:10:27

        ... overthrowing it.

    26. DRDavid Robson1:10:29

        Yeah. And l- so what happens then is if you get them to like reveal the secret to someone, even just one of the researchers, then like that embodied cognition kind of vanishes. So they suddenly start to be more accurate in their movements or in perceiving the kind of physical challenges ahead of them.

    27. CWChris Williamson1:10:47

        So you're saying baseball players and cricketers should be as honest as possible because it's a performance enhancer?

    28. DRDavid Robson1:10:52

        (laughs) Right, yeah, exactly, yeah.

    29. CWChris Williamson1:10:55

        Who knew? I

12. 1:10:56 – 1:18:55

    How Much Should You Talk About Successes?

    1. CWChris Williamson1:10:56

       won- I learned a new word from you, which was confelicity.

    2. DRDavid Robson1:11:01

       Uh, yep, yeah, yeah, I love that, yeah, or mitfreude is the kind of German equivalent. So it's the, we have schadenfreude which is our kind of, uh, joy at someone else's misfortune, but mitfreude or confelicity is our kind of joy at seeing someone else's happiness and success and achievements. And this is so relevant when we think about celebrating our own successes. Like, we tend to hide a lot of our achievements because we don't want to seem like we're bragging and we assume that the other person is gonna judge us harshly for kind of talking about our promotion or like that kind of professional award we won or even just like a- a personal best at the gym. Like, we hide these kinds of things much more than we should because we assume the other person is gonna feel envious of us. But what the research shows is that, like when people find out that you've kind of had these good events in your life and you decided not to share them, it's actually super insulting because you're treating them a bit like a spoiled kind of kid who has to kind of win at monopoly like every time you play it, or they'll have a tantrum. Like, it feels incredibly paternalistic to find out that like your best friend or your colleague or your brother didn't tell you about something good in their life just 'cause they thought you might react badly. Um, so it drives, um, it drives a wedge in our connection in that way because it's just fundamentally like offensive to- to be treated in that way. Um, but then, yet, we're also missing the fact that most of these people would feel confelicity, like rather than being envious, they're just gonna be happy for you, and sharing in that happiness is just another way for you to be able to, uh, to bond and to kind of share an emotional experience that, uh, kind of confirms that you- you share the same values in life.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:12:55

       Well, the other thing as well...... is if you share something which is genuinely meaningful to you and that you're proud of, in a charming way, obviously you can shove it down people's throats, and i- in which case the negative, uh, response is probably, "You deserved it." But if you do it in a charming way and someone doesn't take a thing that's meaningful to you positively and it doesn't positively reinforce it, hey, guess what? That person shouldn't be in your life. Like, they-

    4. DRDavid Robson1:13:22

       Right.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:13:22

       ... suck as a friend.

    6. DRDavid Robson1:13:23

       Yep.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:13:23

       They suck. And, uh, the same as the, you open up to somebody, uh, you try and tell them something that's really meaningful or something that's shameful or something that you're scared of and they don't respond in the right way, that's not a you problem. That's a-

    8. DRDavid Robson1:13:37

       Right.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:13:37

       ... them problem.

    10. DRDavid Robson1:13:38

        Yeah. I mean, to me, all of these things, it's like a classic case of someone being a frenemy, like an ambivalent connection. Like, if they're not responding to you when you're, like, opening up to them, whether it's about failure or a success, um, or just, like, a really meaningful experience, then yeah. Like, there's something kind of ... there's something going on in their life that is wrong, um, but you don't have to feel embarrassed about the fact that their response was inadequate.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:14:07

        Hmm. It is ... I, I need to do a little bit more thinking about this sort of reverse fundamental attribution error, which is ... What you're kind of developing is a, a kind of self-confidence, and social self-confidence, that I will make errors, but I know that I'm coming into this playing the rules of the game remotely appropriately and trying to put my best foot forward. And it takes basically all of the pressure off you socially. You go, "Look, I, I didn't mess up. Like, I just, you know, I did the thing. It's this person that's incapable of, of receiving or returning in a, a, an apt manner."

    12. DRDavid Robson1:14:47

        Yeah. I mean, that's ... I think that's ultimately it. Like, we should be able to expect from the people in our social networks that they are gonna respond positively to you sharing your life with them. And yeah. So it's like, it's having that confidence to realize that if they're not gonna do that, then maybe your social network is better off without them. Or, at the very least, you just don't have to, like, value their opinion so much. Um, but, I mean, the good news is that, like, we overestimate how likely it is that people are gonna react in all of these negative ways. Like, most people who really have your best interests at heart, they're gonna be ... Like, they're gonna respond in the way that you would want them to.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:15:31

        What is there to say about envy then, if, if confelicity and feeling joy in other people's successes is something that's good? What did you learn about envy?

    14. DRDavid Robson1:15:42

        So, I mean, I think it's perfectly possible for someone to feel, like, a bit of envy and confelicity at the same time. And like, that's how I feel sometimes, like, you know, with my friends who are authors, and if they have, like, a huge success. Like (laughs) , I am, like, genuinely, really delighted for them. I would never wanna take that away from them. Um ...

    15. CWChris Williamson1:16:03

        But I would also-

    16. DRDavid Robson1:16:03

        And a little bit of-

    17. CWChris Williamson1:16:04

        ... like it for me.

    18. DRDavid Robson1:16:05

        Yeah. That's it. And actually, though, there's nothing wrong with feeling envy. So s-, um, scientists kind of say there's, like, a malign envy, where, like, you wanna take that per- tear that person down. Well, that is obviously an unhealthy reaction. Um, but benign envy, when you're like ... When someone else's success is just making you realize, it's reaffirming what your goals are gonna be for yourself and it's like a source of inspiration, like that is totally something ... That's a totally natural reaction and it's something that you should be listening to and then, you know, putting into action. I think it's ... Uh, you know, envy can be a really strong form of motivation. You don't have to put yourself in competition with that particular person, but it's good for you to just identify, like, "Yeah, I still want to achieve that goal. And the fact that this other person has achieved that goal has just proven that to me, that it's probably gonna be as good as I expect it to be."

    19. CWChris Williamson1:17:02

        Isn't it cool? I, I really like this idea of being able to balance being happy for your friend's success with wishing that you could have it as well. I don't think-

    20. DRDavid Robson1:17:10

        Yeah.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:17:10

        ... that that's something that's negative. Uh, I had-

    22. DRDavid Robson1:17:13

        No.

    23. CWChris Williamson1:17:13

        ... Neil, Neil Strauss, the guy that wrote The Game on the show a couple of weeks ago, and he told me the title-

    24. DRDavid Robson1:17:16

        Mm-hmm.

    25. CWChris Williamson1:17:16

        ... of his new book. And I g- uh, I think a, a good rubric for whether or not a title is great is, does the person that you tell it to think, "Fuck, why didn't I think of that?"

    26. DRDavid Robson1:17:29

        (laughs)

    27. CWChris Williamson1:17:29

        And like-

    28. DRDavid Robson1:17:29

        Yeah.

    29. CWChris Williamson1:17:29

        ... that's the kind of envy energy, I think.

    30. DRDavid Robson1:17:33

        Yeah.
13. 1:18:55 – 1:24:27

    Why You Should Ask for Help More

    1. DRDavid Robson1:18:55

    2. CWChris Williamson1:18:55

       Why is asking for help important?

    3. DRDavid Robson1:18:58

       Um, so a lot of us kind of ... And it's, again, because we're scared of seeming, like, vulnerable and weak, we're just scared of asking for help. We assume that we're gonna, you know, be perceived badly for that, but also we think we're gonna be a burden on the other person, that they're not really gonna want to help us anyway, so we're kind of struggling alone. Um, it makes our life a lot harder. But a little bit like when I was talking about when you don't share success, um, because it's, um ... Because you kind of assume the other person's gonna react badly and they feel insulted by that. Well, actually people feel a bit the same if you don't ask for help when it would be totally natural for you to do so. Like if you've got a really good friend who would be able to take you to the hospital when you're ill and you pay loads of money for a taxi, like, they actually feel a lot worse for the fact that you didn't ask them, like it's an insult to them. So we ... By asking for help it can actually be a really good way of cementing a relationship and making that person know how valued they are. And, um, that can even be true, like, not in those kind of emergency situations, but even just with the kind of, the, uh, kind of little things in life that you could maybe do for yourself but, like, it just feels good when someone else is gonna help you out. Um, so like asking someone to cook your favorite meal for you, um, just because you know it's gonna feel like super comforting to have it from that person rather than doing it yourself. Um, there's a Japanese concept called Amai that describes that kind of, um, uh, re- favor request, um, where you could ... You're perfectly capable of doing it, it's a little bit inappropriate to ask for help, but you ask anyway. Um, the idea in, um, the Japanese concept is that actually that can enhance lots of relationships and make people feel kind of especially good about themselves and, like, you know, they enjoy caring for you.

    4. CWChris Williamson1:21:04

       Mm.

    5. DRDavid Robson1:21:04

       And that's what the research shows, and it's not just in Japanese culture, it's also in American culture. By, um, by asking for favors, you're underlining the close nature of your relationship. People actually like you more for it. And amazingly that even happens with strangers. Um, so if you ... The kind of scientists that have this experiment where, like, they gave people these difficult maths questions, and, like, at the end of, um, the kind of test, like, one person had finished before the other one. If one of the participants asked, asked the other to just kind of help them with the remaining questions, that actually increased the bond between the two participants, and you didn't see that increase in the bond if the teacher was the one who kind of told the participant to kind of ... to offer that assistance. You actually had to ask for it yourself-

Episode duration: 1:41:27