Adam Grant Gives Trevor An Intellectual Wedgie! - What Now? with Trevor Noah Podcast

Trevor Noah 0:00 That's the only way I get back into, like, sort of shape, is I, I have to put weights next to my bed. That's literally what I'll do.

Adam Grant 0:09 Do you go to sleep in your gym clothes, too?

Trevor Noah 0:10 No, no, no, no. I- 'cause you, you ... Uh, this is actually a myth. You don't need gym clothes to work out. This is a complete fallacy. You can do it naked. It works just as well. In fact, it makes me feel like I'm, like, in, like, ancient Greece or something. Yeah, there's like a moment where you lift a weight above your head-

Adam Grant 0:24 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 0:25 ... and you're completely naked, and you're just like, "Yes, I am Spartacus."

Adam Grant 0:30 [laughs] [upbeat music]

Trevor Noah 0:36 This is What Now? with Trevor Noah. [upbeat music] It's fun having you. Welcome, welcome to the podcast.

Adam Grant 0:49 I'm excited to be here.

Trevor Noah 0:50 Yeah, man. I'm really happy to have you here because, like, like, I, I love how you think, but then I also love the science behind how you think. Some people know your books or y- your TED Talks. But what I've noticed is some people know you as ... Like, they think of you as a, as a researcher. They go, "That's what that guy does." And then some people think of you as, as really a social scientist and a psychologist and somebody who looks at human interactions. W- how would you define what you actually do?

Adam Grant 1:17 I, I mean, I guess I'd say I'm an organizational psychologist.

Trevor Noah 1:19 Okay.

Adam Grant 1:20 And I'm interested in how we can improve the quality of our lives at work and beyond.

Trevor Noah 1:25 Is it just, like, business organizations, or any-

Adam Grant 1:27 Any kind

Trevor Noah 1:27 ... Like, how, how, how big does an organization get before it's no longer an organization?

Adam Grant 1:31 I think if it's fewer than two people, it's definitely not an organization.

Trevor Noah 1:34 So it's the Lord's rules, basically.

Adam Grant 1:36 Maybe.

Trevor Noah 1:36 Yeah, 'cause He said that as well. He said what? "When three or more are gathered in my name, then I am in their presence." That's-

Adam Grant 1:42 I, I'm gonna take your word for it.

Trevor Noah 1:43 Yeah. Well, it's the Lord's, it's the Lord's words.

Adam Grant 1:44 I haven't had too many conversations with the Lord, so I can't-

Trevor Noah 1:45 Well, it's in the Bible. It's in the ... That's one of my favorite, like, lines in the Bible. I like that the Lord is like, "Look, man. There's, like, two of you. You should probably go to church. If there's three of you, I'll come to you."

Adam Grant 1:57 Fascinating. I didn't know there was a biblical theory of team size or gatherings.

Trevor Noah 2:02 Actually, maybe then let me, let me start with asking you that. Is there a science behind the number of people who come together then increasing their ability to connect with something more powerful or spiritual?

Adam Grant 2:12 Well, h- thinking out loud, there, there are a couple things that come to mind.

Trevor Noah 2:15 Yeah.

Adam Grant 2:15 The first one is I'm thinking of Durkheim, the, the founding father of sociology, who wrote about collective effervescence, which is a lot of syllables for the feeling of energy and purpose that you have when you come together in a group for something larger than yourself.

Trevor Noah 2:30 Say that again. The feeling of?

Adam Grant 2:32 Energy and purpose.

Trevor Noah 2:33 That you have when coming together collectively in a group.

Adam Grant 2:35 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 2:35 For the same reason, though.

Adam Grant 2:37 Yes, with a, with a common goal.

Trevor Noah 2:39 Oh, I like this. Wait. Is this ... So is this the same as, like, Roman soldiers being able to march further when they were marching together?

Adam Grant 2:44 Possibly.

Trevor Noah 2:45 Okay.

Adam Grant 2:46 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 2:46 And do we know why that is?

Adam Grant 2:48 I think we know, we know a little bit. There's [laughs] there's actually a hilarious experiment where people had to sing O Canada, uh, either in unison or not, and then they ended up cooperating more afterward if they had been in tune together.

Trevor Noah 3:01 Oh, man. Now then it seems like national anthems have a purpose in a weird way.

Adam Grant 3:05 They might.

Trevor Noah 3:06 Like, beyond just ... I thought it was just, like, a love song to the country.

Adam Grant 3:09 Well, I mean, I think you made the case that Sweet Caroline is-

Trevor Noah 3:13 [laughs]

Adam Grant 3:13 ... better than our national anthem at bringing people together.

Trevor Noah 3:16 I think it is. I think it's one of the-

Adam Grant 3:16 That was hysterical, by the way.

Trevor Noah 3:18 Thank you very much. I think it's, I think it's one of the, uh, one of the greatest ... I actually think that's what we should do. I think every country should change its national anthem every few years just to, like, keep it fresh and keep it ... like, keep up with the times and the vibes. You know what I mean? And then, you know, like, yeah, like Sweet Caroline could've been a national anthem, I think, for a while, you know?

Adam Grant 3:35 How would you choose?

Trevor Noah 3:37 Well, you just see what people like. It's like, how do they choose the charts?

Adam Grant 3:41 That's ... Th- this would be so much fun.

Trevor Noah 3:42 Yeah. I mean, we just listen to the music, and then we go, like, "All right. A new national anthem." You know? It's like, all right, this is ... Taylor Swift has a great one, and then Beyoncé has another great one, and then we just, like, go down a list, and we choose, like, amazing songs. Sometimes you unearth them from way back in the day. You know?

Adam Grant 3:57 What I love about this is then you would get people a little bit more comfortable with changing old traditions, and then it wouldn't be a far cry to say we should have a new constitutional convention.

Trevor Noah 4:06 Damn. You just took it there.

Adam Grant 4:09 I mean-

Trevor Noah 4:09 I don't touch the Constitution.

Adam Grant 4:11 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 4:11 Let me tell you something now, Adam Grant. I want you to know, you don't bring that to my podcast.

Adam Grant 4:16 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 4:16 The Constitution is the way the Constitution was and always will be. All right? Anyone else who's watching this, you know that I believe in the Constitution.

Adam Grant 4:24 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 4:24 And it stays the way it should, especially all those amendments.

Adam Grant 4:26 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 4:27 You don't change those amendments. How dare you? You, you, you're a big fan of change.

Adam Grant 4:32 I mean, I, I think that the world changes, and we have a choice about whether we want to evolve with it or whether we want to become obsolete.

Trevor Noah 4:40 Okay. So let's, let's try climb this mountain together. Somebody who is pro-change is y- how I assume you are, you know, from reading you, listening to you, et cetera.

Adam Grant 4:52 Depends on the change.

Trevor Noah 4:53 Okay, okay, okay. So then let's start with that. When do you, or when do you think someone should change their mind? Because on, on ... Like, I always go, like, you should always be willing to change. And for me personally, as Trevor, I go, I always assume that I could be wrong. It doesn't matter what it is. I just always assume that I could be wrong, and then I go from there.

Adam Grant 5:10 Including about that?

Trevor Noah 5:12 Yeah.

Adam Grant 5:12 Okay. I think that change is not always good, right? We have to be clear about that. Um, sometimes it backfires. Sometimes it has unintended con- consequences. We're living with a lot of them right now, and your show is about that in some ways.

Trevor Noah 5:25 Right. Yeah.

Adam Grant 5:26 I think, I think the reasons for change are really important. So a lot of people change to gain social approval.

Trevor Noah 5:32 Uh-huh.

Adam Grant 5:32 And not-

Trevor Noah 5:33 Oh, plants.

Adam Grant 5:34 Oh, wow. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 5:35 Well, I saw that coming, and I couldn't jump quick enough.

Adam Grant 5:38 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 5:40 Sorry, but well, it's, it's-

Adam Grant 5:40 And it's right out of shot.

Trevor Noah 5:41 But it's out of shot. Sorry.

Adam Grant 5:43 That's hilarious.

Trevor Noah 5:44 You, you're gonna just have to leave it for now, I guess.

Speaker 5:46 Yeah.

Adam Grant 5:46 We deal with this change. You guys can run with this metaphor here.

Trevor Noah 5:49 It's, uh ... Yeah, not all change is good.

Adam Grant 5:51 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 5:52 That's what you were saying, right?

Adam Grant 5:53 I don't know. Maybe that plant needed to go.

Trevor Noah 5:54 I didn't know you bring the props. I didn't know you bring props to your interviews.

Adam Grant 5:56 I ... You brought the prop.

Trevor Noah 5:57 That's, uh, that's really well played.

Adam Grant 6:00 Thank you.

Trevor Noah 6:00 So, [laughs] so going back. No, no. So going back. Um-

Adam Grant 6:05 Why do you change?

Trevor Noah 6:06 Yeah

Adam Grant 6:06 Yeah

Trevor Noah 6:06 Why, why do you change?

Adam Grant 6:07 When.

Trevor Noah 6:07 Or when do you know that you should change?

Adam Grant 6:10 I think for me, the starting point is to say most people base what they wanna, what they wanna change and what, what, what they wanna keep constant on their identity, and their identity is a set of beliefs about what's true.

Trevor Noah 6:23 Mm-hmm.

Adam Grant 6:24 I think that's a mistake. I think who you are is not a question of what you believe, it's a question of what you value. So not what are your truths, but rather what are your principles?

Trevor Noah 6:34 What are your truths? What are ... Wait, wait, wait, forgive me, it sounds like the same thing. Help, help me break it down.

Adam Grant 6:41 So, um, let's, uh, let's, let- let's actually, let's talk about you, Trevor.

Trevor Noah 6:44 Yeah.

Adam Grant 6:44 Let's talk about one of your core beliefs. Give me a policy that you think is-

Trevor Noah 6:49 Ooh

Adam Grant 6:49 ... necessary or effective

Trevor Noah 6:51 That is necessary-

Adam Grant 6:52 Or effective

Trevor Noah 6:54 ... or effective.

Adam Grant 6:54 Or that we should have that we don't.

Trevor Noah 6:55 Oh, goodness. Okay. The way taxes, um, are doled out for people's education in America, for children's education, I don't think should be by zip code. I think somebody should try and find an algorithm or like a system that basically just breaks it up equally and every school gets the same money because otherwise people have created little, little enclaves where the money ends up. And so even though it's a public school, and everyone's proud of that, "Oh, my child goes to a public school," you've made it a private school by locking it into the zip code where the school accepts people from.

Adam Grant 7:24 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 7:24 Do you know what I mean? So for me, that policy I would change. I would go, "No, we find a system where the money all comes together, and then it just gets like sprayed out equally, and then every school is getting the same amount of resources," as opposed to schools getting money based on who's the richest people who live near it.

Adam Grant 7:40 Okay, good. So you have a belief that equal distribution of resources to schools is a good idea.

Trevor Noah 7:46 Yes. I think it's a better idea than what, than what it is now.

Adam Grant 7:49 Now, what's the value behind that?

Trevor Noah 7:51 Well-

Adam Grant 7:51 Why do you wanna do that?

Trevor Noah 7:52 I don't even think about people being smarter, I don't even think-

Adam Grant 7:54 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 7:55 I just think if, if everybody has access to a thing, then they're more likely to be in sync with each other because in a way we've given them all access to O Canada as an education system, and so they're more likely to feel like they are together when they go out into the world.

Adam Grant 8:09 Okay. So the value you're describing is community, solidarity-

Trevor Noah 8:12 Yeah

Adam Grant 8:12 ... belonging. That's your value. Okay. Now, your belief is you have a particular way of getting us there-

Trevor Noah 8:19 Yes

Adam Grant 8:19 ... that might or might not be true.

Trevor Noah 8:20 That is true.

Adam Grant 8:21 And so if you stay open to questioning the belief, you're interested in whatever is the best policy to serve your value.

Trevor Noah 8:28 Oh, damn.

Adam Grant 8:28 And that allows you to learn and change.

Trevor Noah 8:30 Okay.

Adam Grant 8:30 But don't change the value.

Trevor Noah 8:31 No, no, this makes a lot of sense because I should be open to the idea that equally distributing the thing is wrong.

Adam Grant 8:38 Yeah, exactly.

Trevor Noah 8:38 But I still wish to create a society where people are generous and connected and living in a community.

Adam Grant 8:43 Nailed it. Look at that.

Trevor Noah 8:44 Ah, I like this.

Adam Grant 8:46 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 8:46 You should, you should teach.

Adam Grant 8:47 I mean, maybe I will.

Trevor Noah 8:48 You should, you should go to university and like be a professor or something.

Adam Grant 8:51 I, I might need a recommendation from you.

Trevor Noah 8:53 [laughs]

Adam Grant 8:54 I'll, I'll be like, "Can I get a Trevor reference for that job?"

Trevor Noah 8:57 [laughs] You know, I ... So I, I've always wondered this about you. When, when you have this much data in your head and this much science, does it make it harder to move through the world with people who are operating completely from like a, like ... I, I don't wanna say flawed, but what's the biggest thing that ... What's like your pet peeve when you talk to people?

Adam Grant 9:17 Astrology.

Trevor Noah 9:18 Hmm. Astrology. You don't believe in astrology?

Adam Grant 9:22 I mean, technically I shouldn't believe or disbelieve, right? I have a set of values-

Trevor Noah 9:27 You don't ... Wow

Adam Grant 9:29 ... around scientific inquiry, and I think the science casts a lot of doubt on it. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 9:34 Okay. Look, okay, I'm, I'm skeptical of astrology, right? But I'm a Pisces, so that's my nature.

Adam Grant 9:39 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 9:39 Do you know what I mean? But I'm saying like you ... Okay, so let's, let's get into this.

Adam Grant 9:43 Are you really a Pisces, Trevor?

Trevor Noah 9:44 Yeah, I really am. I really am.

Adam Grant 9:44 And do you think that has any meaning?

Trevor Noah 9:46 Um, okay, so this is, this is the thing. Do I believe in astrology? No. I, I have this romantic idea that there is a possibility that something did affect people, but I don't necessarily know what it is. Maybe it's January people. Maybe we're like giving it star signs. But I keep thinking like maybe if you're born at the end of the year, you have a different vibe because like you're born around like end of the year. Like people have a different vibe at the end of the year, right? And maybe you live a different life because, you know, I think like Malcolm Gladwell did like some of that work, is like you, you also get into the schooling system at a different time, so maybe you act different, you feel different, you are different. So maybe our star signs are just like a woo woo way of tapping into something that might be scientific. Now, do I believe it tells you what's gonna happen in the next month? No, I don't. But I go like, "Ooh, there's something here."

Adam Grant 10:35 So interesting to hear you talk about it. So I think you're, you're talking about it like a scientist would, and what drives me crazy about people's stances on astrology is they come in as preachers, not scientists.

Trevor Noah 10:49 Okay, so what, what separates a, a preacher from a scientist?

Adam Grant 10:52 So a preacher is basically proselytizing their existing views.

Trevor Noah 10:55 Mm-hmm.

Adam Grant 10:56 And a scientist is trying to find the truth, not spread it.

Trevor Noah 11:02 Okay. So wait. I, I, I've heard you talk a little bit about this before. Let's, let's break down some ... So there's preachers, there are politicians, and then there is-

Adam Grant 11:10 Prosecutors

Trevor Noah 11:11 ... prosecutors.

Adam Grant 11:12 And scientists.

Trevor Noah 11:12 Okay, okay, okay. So preachers, you're going out there, you're basically saying, "This is what I believe in, and everyone should believe in it with me."

Adam Grant 11:18 Yes.

Trevor Noah 11:18 Okay. Politicians?

Adam Grant 11:19 In politician mode, basically you're saying, uh, "I'm not even gonna bother to listen to you unless you already agree with what I think."

Trevor Noah 11:27 Oh, damn, Okay. And then prosecutor.

Adam Grant 11:31 Prosecutor is my biggest problem. So this is what happens whenever someone tries to give me a horoscope, is I start to just smack it down with data.

Trevor Noah 11:38 Oh, you, you, like you're a pro- you have a problem being a prosecutor.

Adam Grant 11:40 Oh, huge problem.

Trevor Noah 11:41 [laughs]

Adam Grant 11:41 Um, I've been called a logic bully, Trevor.

Trevor Noah 11:44 [laughs]

Adam Grant 11:44 And, uh, you think that's funny. My wife had to explain that's not a compliment.

Trevor Noah 11:48 Oh, yeah. No, I know it's not a compliment.

Adam Grant 11:50 I, I didn't get it.

Trevor Noah 11:50 That's, that's what I think is hilarious.

Adam Grant 11:51 Like what do you, what do you mean people don't wanna be hammered with facts and studies when they're wrong?

Trevor Noah 11:55 Oh, man, I love this. Have you gotten better at this? Are you able to like hold yourself when somebody ...

Adam Grant 12:03 Sometimes.

Trevor Noah 12:03 Sometimes.

Adam Grant 12:04 Sometimes. I mean, I, I, I met, I talked to somebody the other day-

Trevor Noah 12:07 Yes

Adam Grant 12:07 ... who was interested in exploring ideas-

Trevor Noah 12:09 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Adam Grant 12:10 ... and finding out what's true-

Trevor Noah 12:10 Okay, okay

Adam Grant 12:11 ... and not, not preaching or p- or-

Trevor Noah 12:12 Yes, yes, yes

Adam Grant 12:13 ... and, you know, I got a like, "Well, what's, what's your sign? Like I need to know your sign to understand you." And I just like, I launched into a huge rant. I couldn't resist.

Trevor Noah 12:23 That's hilarious. Wait. Okay, wait. So now let me ask you this. As an organizational psychologist, as somebody who studies people, that is an instance that a lot of people might be able to laugh at and go, "Man, this is funny. That's hilarious. I can't believe that happened," et cetera. But I feel like in the world we're living in today, as people are getting more access to a more, what I would call like a niche existence, it's your for you feed, it's your algorithm, it's your way of seeing the world. Is there any science or is there a proven way to bridge the gap between yourself and somebody else? Especially, let's start with people you care about.

Adam Grant 13:05 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 13:05 Someone you care about who holds a view that you, as you said, you would make you launch a rant against them. Like you go like, "I cannot believe you hold this view knowing you as a human being the way I thought I did."

Adam Grant 13:16 So ideally what, what you start with is you say, "Okay, I'm feeling this strong temptation to preach and prosecute, and I wanna think more like a scientist here." Don't let your ideas become your identity.

Trevor Noah 13:27 Okay.

Adam Grant 13:28 So a good scientist would have the humility to know what they don't know and the curiosity to keep seeking new knowledge.

Trevor Noah 13:33 Okay.

Adam Grant 13:34 And the way you start doing that is you say, "Huh, what an interesting specimen."

Trevor Noah 13:39 [laughs]

Adam Grant 13:39 I mean, don't say that out loud.

Trevor Noah 13:41 Okay.

Adam Grant 13:41 But I think that-

Trevor Noah 13:41 Okay. I was like, okay, this is not gonna b- help build your friendships. [laughs]

Adam Grant 13:44 No.

Trevor Noah 13:44 Okay. Okay. Okay.

Adam Grant 13:45 No, but the, the more, the more somebody holds a different opinion-

Trevor Noah 13:48 Yes

Adam Grant 13:49 ... the less you understand about how they think.

Trevor Noah 13:51 Okay.

Adam Grant 13:51 Even if you're offended by what they think. And that means you have to want to know more. So you've got a couple options. I think the first one is to just establish that two reasonable, reasonable, intelligent people can-

Trevor Noah 14:03 Yeah

Adam Grant 14:03 ... actually disagree.

Trevor Noah 14:04 Yeah.

Adam Grant 14:04 And that's okay. A second is, what I love to do is I, I love to ask, and this is, when I remember to do it-

Trevor Noah 14:09 Yes

Adam Grant 14:10 ... it leads to a much better conversation. Like, "Okay, Trevor, so like you called yourself a Pisces. That's so interesting to me that you would put any stock in something that I think has no evidence behind it. What evidence would change your mind?"

Trevor Noah 14:22 Hmm. And then what, what, what happens? What follows?

Adam Grant 14:27 Well, usually people start to map out, "Well, this is the kind of study I would need to see." And then they're on my turf. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 14:33 Oh, damn.

Adam Grant 14:34 I could, I could-

Trevor Noah 14:34 So you're out here laying logic traps.

Adam Grant 14:36 A little bit.

Trevor Noah 14:37 The, the logic bully has turned into the logic hunter.

Adam Grant 14:39 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 14:39 Like, like Adam's out in the, you're out in the forest like laying out logic traps. Um-

Adam Grant 14:44 The traps are better than-

Trevor Noah 14:44 Okay. So wait

Adam Grant 14:45 ... than the bullying though

Trevor Noah 14:46 ... let me, let, let's, let's play this game out now.

Adam Grant 14:47 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 14:47 Let's try this again in a benign topic. Let's go with astrology. Now, and I'm saying this to you, and I mean this completely honestly, I do not believe in it. However, what would you need from me to accept that astrology might have some merit?

Adam Grant 15:03 The first thing I would, I would want you to do is, is to read the science that has convinced me that it doesn't have any merit. So-

Trevor Noah 15:09 Okay

Adam Grant 15:09 ... I would say let's, let's just throw out a few simple data points.

Trevor Noah 15:12 Yes.

Adam Grant 15:12 And I'm gonna try really hard not to logic bully here.

Trevor Noah 15:14 No, no. Go, go, go. You can't bully me 'cause I'm asking for it.

Adam Grant 15:17 So there's a-

Trevor Noah 15:17 If I say, if I say pull my underwear-

Adam Grant 15:19 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 15:19 ... then I'm now a willing participant. There's no bullying here.

Adam Grant 15:22 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 15:22 This is just two consenting adults, one pulling the other one's underwear up out of their pants.

Adam Grant 15:27 Fair.

Trevor Noah 15:27 So-

Adam Grant 15:28 All right

Trevor Noah 15:28 ... please-

Adam Grant 15:28 So intellect-

Trevor Noah 15:28 ... logic wedgie me

Adam Grant 15:29 ... intellectual wedgie. [laughs] Here we go.

Trevor Noah 15:30 Yes.

Adam Grant 15:31 Um, okay. So there's a psychology piece and then there's a, an astrophysics piece.

Trevor Noah 15:35 Okay.

Adam Grant 15:35 Where do you wanna go first?

Trevor Noah 15:36 Okay, let's go psychology first.

Adam Grant 15:37 Okay. So psychology first. So there's a huge study by, um, led by Jackson Lewis at MIT, uh, it's over 160,000 people, where you get their astrological sign-

Trevor Noah 15:46 Okay

Adam Grant 15:47 ... and then you also have them fill out a, a long personality questionnaire. And it turns out there is literally a zero correlation between any of the signs and any personality trait that you can think of.

Trevor Noah 15:58 Wow. Zero?

Adam Grant 15:59 Zero. Zero. Like on a one to seven scale, um, like Capricorns and Pisces would come out 5.62 versus 5.63 on how agreeable and friendly they are. And every trait and every sign goes like that.

Trevor Noah 16:14 Zero.

Adam Grant 16:15 Zero.

Trevor Noah 16:16 This is devastating.

Adam Grant 16:18 Here's the thing. When you share this evidence with astrology fans, what they do is they say, "Well, I need your whole natal chart, because it's not enough to just know your zodiac sign."

Trevor Noah 16:27 Which is true, because I mean, the moon also affects, and where was Venus? Where was Venus? This is a very key question.

Adam Grant 16:33 Not in the picture, clearly. But that's where you then start to go to astrophysics. And I'm not an astrophysicist, right?

Trevor Noah 16:38 Okay.

Adam Grant 16:38 So I'm, I should be careful here. It's pretty clear that there, the, the gravitational force that the sun, the moon, and the stars exert on us-

Trevor Noah 16:46 Mm-hmm

Adam Grant 16:47 ... is so infinitesimally small that it w- it would al- almost be impossible to measure it. The force of any celestial objects on your body-

Trevor Noah 16:54 Yes

Adam Grant 16:54 ... is smaller than the force your own pillow exerts when you go to sleep at night.

Trevor Noah 16:58 Damn.

Adam Grant 16:59 And you said you're a Pisces, Trevor?

Trevor Noah 17:01 Yeah.

Adam Grant 17:02 Turns out because of the Earth's wobble, you're not even the sign that you think you are. Which hasn't been accounted for in the last couple thousand years.

Trevor Noah 17:08 I'm, I'm sorry. Say that again.

Adam Grant 17:10 The Earth wobbles.

Trevor Noah 17:11 Because the Earth has wobbled, people aren't the star sign that they are.

Adam Grant 17:14 That they think they are.

Trevor Noah 17:15 How much have, has it moved by?

Adam Grant 17:17 I think y- I, I don't, I, I don't actually know. This is not my expertise. I think you might be one sign off.

Trevor Noah 17:22 I knew it. I'm an Aquarius.

Adam Grant 17:23 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 17:23 I could feel ... You know what? I felt a change a few years ago, and I was like, "But I, I'm Pisces. This makes a lot of sense."

Adam Grant 17:30 Clearly.

Trevor Noah 17:31 You've just, you've just helped me use the science to get back into astrology.

Adam Grant 17:36 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 17:36 No. No. We're gonna continue this conversation right after this short break. [upbeat music] Do you think it's more important to be right or do you think it's more important to get along with other people?

Adam Grant 17:54 Ideally for me, a healthy relationship is one in which people recognize great minds do not think alike. They challenge each other to think again.

Trevor Noah 18:01 Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Adam Grant 18:02 And if we can't question e- each other and we can't disagree, then we actually don't have a lot of respect for each other.

Trevor Noah 18:07 Oh, that's interesting.

Adam Grant 18:09 Like, I don't respect your ability to learn and your willingness to consider different views if I'm not open to putting something out there that you might object to.

Trevor Noah 18:19 You know, it's, it's funny. In, in, um, in one of the episodes we had Gerard Carmichael on And we're talking about his TV show and how he came out as gay, and he'd been struggling to get his family to accept him as an openly gay man. And one of the things we disagreed on, and we're still friends, but one of the things we disagreed on is how he went about it. So he went slamming it in their face, showing my mom, "This is my boyfriend," showing my dad, like, pics of my boyfriend in his underwear, and you know what I mean. Now, personally, personally as Trevor, I don't agree with that, and I get where Gerard's coming from, and he said, like, "This is the only way I could get my family to change." He knows his family better than I do.

Adam Grant 19:02 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 19:02 So I go like, "All right. I'll defer to you." But the thing I said to him was, "I find..." I'm not a scientist, nor am I a psychologist, but I find one of the biggest things that hurts us in society today is that we... It's sort of like we, um, how can I put it? If we spend all our time butting up against the thing that, that, that we disagree on, I was f- I almost feel like we form a callus with each other as human beings.

Adam Grant 19:29 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 19:29 And then that becomes the thing that we meet on every single time. "Well, well, if it isn't Mr. Pisces." "Ah, if it isn't Mr. Science."

Adam Grant 19:37 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 19:38 And now I no longer see you as Adam, and so I, I sometimes wonder, and maybe, maybe you've got, you know, something to back this up, or maybe I'm wrong. I sometimes wonder if the key to bridging those divides is not by hitting them head-on, but it's by fortifying the other parts of our, of our connection that make us more likely to trust each other in the parts where we don't get along. Does this make sense?

Adam Grant 20:03 It makes a ton of sense. This is fascinating. Okay, so I have a couple reactions. First one is, uh, a callus protects your hands.

Trevor Noah 20:11 Okay.

Adam Grant 20:11 Right? So it's, it's a buildup of, I don't even... What is it?

Trevor Noah 20:15 I guess it's just-

Adam Grant 20:16 Skin

Trevor Noah 20:16 ... skin that, yeah, dies and, I don't know.

Adam Grant 20:18 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 20:19 I'm, I'm not a anything, but yeah.

Adam Grant 20:21 But it, it, it prevents you from bleeding, right?

Trevor Noah 20:24 Right.

Adam Grant 20:24 'Cause there's a, there's a protective layer on there.

Trevor Noah 20:26 Mm-hmm.

Adam Grant 20:26 And so I, I actually wonder if the opposite is true. If we, if we invested in other parts of our relationships-

Trevor Noah 20:32 Yeah

Adam Grant 20:32 ... we would increase, uh, there's a term for it, actually. It's called tensility, um, which I had never heard. Um, my mentor, Jane Dutton, gave me the term. It's, it's basically the c- the carrying capacity of a relationship.

Trevor Noah 20:43 Oh, I like that.

Adam Grant 20:44 Um, so yeah.

Trevor Noah 20:44 Like tensile strength.

Adam Grant 20:45 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 20:45 Okay.

Adam Grant 20:45 To bend without breaking.

Trevor Noah 20:47 Okay.

Adam Grant 20:47 Um, and I think you could say, yeah, the more we invest in the relationship, the more we build it.

Trevor Noah 20:52 Right.

Adam Grant 20:53 But for some reason, whatever we'd been doing to invest in our relationships in the last decade was not enough. Like, people didn't used to fight about politics, I think, pre-2015 the way they do now.

Trevor Noah 21:06 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Adam Grant 21:07 And we've still watched a lot of relationships fall apart.

Trevor Noah 21:09 Mm-hmm.

Adam Grant 21:09 Think about how many, in the US, Thanksgiving dinners were just shattered.

Trevor Noah 21:13 Yeah.

Adam Grant 21:14 So I actually wonder if we're making, in some ways, the opposite mistake. We say, "You know, that's, that's not important enough to have the argument."

Trevor Noah 21:22 Hmm.

Adam Grant 21:22 "I wanna keep the peace. I don't wanna damage the relationship." And so we never build the calluses for the big ones.

Trevor Noah 21:29 You're, you're almost going to an earlier stage. You're saying because we don't spend enough time challenging each other on the small things, we're not prepared when the big things come around for a constructive, and let's say respectful dialogue.

Adam Grant 21:46 Exactly. But if you, if you think about it for a second, it's, I mean, i- in any other domain of life, we would assume you have to practice when the stakes are low in order to be prepared-

Trevor Noah 21:57 Yeah

Adam Grant 21:57 ... for the high-stakes situations.

Trevor Noah 21:57 That makes, that makes, that makes, yeah.

Adam Grant 21:59 But I think so often people are told, you know, "Just compromise. Pick your battles in relationships," that they end up treating them as, as fragile, as opposed to saying, "No, we've, we've actually gotta learn how to disagree." And in fact, there's, um, there's some classic research looking at, um, at families, uh, looking at what does it take to raise a creative child? And it turns out that creative children come from families, more often than not, uh, that had regular arguments and disagreements.

Trevor Noah 22:27 Really?

Adam Grant 22:28 Yeah. So, um, if you wanna raise a creative kid, um, you can at least increase the probability, I'm not sure if it's causal [laughs]

Trevor Noah 22:36 [laughs]

Adam Grant 22:36 But, but by arguing, um, with your spouse a little bit more.

Trevor Noah 22:39 What, what do you think that is? I have an idea, but I'd love to know what you think that is.

Adam Grant 22:42 Well, I wanna hear your hunch before I, I tell you what I think 'cause I've-

Trevor Noah 22:45 Okay, so I-

Adam Grant 22:45 ... I've been thinking about this for a long time

Trevor Noah 22:46 So, okay, so here's what I think it is. I think the reason children who grow up in houses that are a little more argumentative might be a little more creative is because they're existing in an environment where there isn't one way to think, and so what happens is they're both stumbling on what I like to call third thought, right? I had this i- like, this idea when I was working on The Daily Show with my team, and I'd say, "I think everyone has a thought," right? And then, like, you can have a second thought even by yourself, but I think there's this elusive third thought that can only come from two different thoughts clashing together and forming a third thought that isn't from one specific place.

Adam Grant 23:24 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 23:24 And so I think if you are watching people who don't agree as a child, people who you generally love or you care for, et cetera, you are listening to a person, and you are agreeing with them maybe or just seeing their point of view. You're looking at another person, agreeing with them, and seeing their point of view. And then maybe you are holding both, including a third, which might be yours, which is another opinion of it, and that might force your brain to think of more things than just the things that exist, which I think is what creativity fundamentally is.

Adam Grant 23:57 I love this. Okay, so, so your theory is cognitive complexity comes from seeing people argue.

Trevor Noah 24:02 Okay.

Adam Grant 24:02 That you don't default to-

Trevor Noah 24:03 I need to remember all the... You, you make, like, some of my ideas sound way smarter and fancier than they are, which I like. Cognitive complexity, write that down. All right. All right.

Adam Grant 24:10 I, I just give you terms for things you already know.

Trevor Noah 24:12 Okay, okay, okay, cool.

Adam Grant 24:13 I also think you learn to be a nonconformist through that same process.

Trevor Noah 24:17 Oh, interesting.

Adam Grant 24:18 That instead of just defaulting or deferring to whatever an authority figure tells you, you realize, well, there are two different authorities in the room, and they don't agree. And you, I, I think that can both lead to cognitive complexity, but it can also lead to more courage when it comes to challenging the status quo 'Cause there's not a right answer coming from above

Trevor Noah 24:37 There is not one coming from above.

Adam Grant 24:39 Yep.

Trevor Noah 24:41 You know, it's funny you say this. My mom is very religious, extremely, extremely religious, but I also think she is one of the most progressive thinkers I've ever come across in my lifetime. And one thing I always noticed as a child was how sometimes she would disagree with the sermon that the pastor gave when we'd leave church. And I'd be like, "Huh." And I'm just a kid, I'm just sitting in the passenger seat listening. And she goes, "I didn't agree with that. Mm-mm. I didn't, I didn't, I, I, I hear where the pastor was coming from, but I think he was, he, that, that story of Joseph is not about..." And then she'd go into her thing. And, and then I'd be like, "But he's the pastor." And she's like, "Yeah, he's a guy who reads the Bible."

Adam Grant 25:22 He's not God.

Trevor Noah 25:22 Yeah, but he's not God. She's like, "We also have the Bible." And it was an interesting way for me to view even religion is going like, huh, don't assume that the person who stands on the pulpit has like-

Adam Grant 25:35 All the answers

Trevor Noah 25:35 ... a monopoly on knowledge.

Adam Grant 25:37 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 25:37 You too have the book that you can read. And so now that makes me wonder now, I'm like, huh, was that part of me w- you know, w- okay, I like this.

Adam Grant 25:46 I, I like it too. I mean, you can see both of those effects playing out.

Trevor Noah 25:48 Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Adam Grant 25:49 You're, you're not just gonna assume that the pastor's answer is gospel.

Trevor Noah 25:53 Right.

Adam Grant 25:53 And then you're also not gonna be afraid to question what somebody in power says.

Trevor Noah 25:58 So how do you... If you're a parent, you're a parent. I've met your daughter actually. One, one of my favorite things I've, I've encountered is you arguing with your daughter.

Adam Grant 26:09 I don't even remember this.

Trevor Noah 26:09 You don't remember this? It was really fun. So, um, I don't remember what it was about. I wish I did. But the two of you were having a discussion and she said, "I think it's this." And you said, "Why do you think it's that?" And you're like, "I don't know if, I don't know if I agree with you." And then I was like, "Actually, I agree with her," and I really did.

Adam Grant 26:24 I wasn't trying to stir shit or anything. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 26:26 She had a, a respect for you, but not like a, not like a fear. So have you, have you encouraged that in your daughter? Have you gone like, "Hey, argue me," like on everything? Or how does, or does she just see it from you?

Adam Grant 26:37 [laughs] I, I, I've tried to encourage it, but it, it's gonna happen whether I do or not.

Trevor Noah 26:41 Right. Because she j- I'm assuming she just observes this.

Adam Grant 26:43 Yeah. I mean, she sees me getting things wrong all the time, and so how can you not speak up about that?

Trevor Noah 26:48 Oh, I like that.

Adam Grant 26:48 But I will say, you know, so you haven't met my wife Alison, but, uh, during COVID we did something that we'd never tried before, which is we said, "Okay, we wanna, we wanna create a household where our kids are willing to, you know, constructively disagree and debate things. We also wanna raise a family in which, um, you know, they, they can admit their mistakes and not be ego defensive about what they did wrong."

Trevor Noah 27:12 Hmm.

Adam Grant 27:13 So we're gonna, we sat down at family dinner one night and we said, um, "We're gonna go around and each say something we wanna do better, and then we're gonna ask everybody else to give us notes basically-"

Trevor Noah 27:24 Mm-hmm

Adam Grant 27:24 ... "on how we can improve." And we did it first. And we, we anticipated some of what our kids told us, not everything, but it, it was, it was such a powerful conversation because I think for the, I, I'd never thought to do this before, although, like we do this at work all the time, right?

Trevor Noah 27:40 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Adam Grant 27:41 Like bosses are supposed to ask their, their teams, "How can I improve?"

Trevor Noah 27:44 Right.

Adam Grant 27:44 Um, I'd never seen parents do that actively with their kids before. And one of the notes [laughs] that, that Joanna gave me was that I needed to be less stubborn. And I was like, "I literally just published a book-"

Trevor Noah 27:56 [laughs]

Adam Grant 27:56 "... about changing your mind." And then Elena jumped in and was like, "You need to think again, Dad."

Trevor Noah 28:02 Oh, that's funny.

Adam Grant 28:04 And I was like, "Oh, who am I writing this book for? It's for me, because I need to internalize my own message." But I, I do think that, look, some, some people, like they think this is, you know, gentle parenting gone overboard.

Trevor Noah 28:16 Mm-hmm.

Adam Grant 28:16 Like I don't wanna ask my kids how I can be a better parent.

Trevor Noah 28:19 Yeah.

Adam Grant 28:19 I'm like, I don't know a better way to model to them that we're all works in progress, and we all get things wrong, and we all have to work on ourselves than that.

Trevor Noah 28:28 Was there something th- where you like disagreed and you were like, "Nope, I don't agree with your assessment"?

Adam Grant 28:33 Yes. Uh, when we got to the when we should all have smartphones.

Trevor Noah 28:37 Nice. Nice.

Adam Grant 28:39 Had to set a boundary there.

Trevor Noah 28:40 Now, okay, so now let's talk about that boundary, 'cause I think a lot of parents will relate to this. Your kids go, "Hey, I think you're wrong about us not having smartphones." You go, "Nope, we, we do not think that we're wrong." Like how are you making that decision and what are you basing it on?

Adam Grant 28:56 Well, I think, look, I think the evidence is really messy and there are lots of conflicting findings. Even some of the, the most knowledgeable experts on this topic don't agree-

Trevor Noah 29:05 Yeah

Adam Grant 29:06 ... on what policy should be. I think that two things jumped out at me. The first one is, um, there was a study showing that the, the earlier kids got smartphones, um, the younger they were when they got their first one, uh, the lower their self-esteem, um, the more emotional challenges they faced-

Trevor Noah 29:22 Wow

Adam Grant 29:22 ... even going into young adulthood. Now is that, is that causal? We don't know. Um, it could be that parents who were lax were lax in lots of different ways. But that's concerning to me.

Trevor Noah 29:33 Damn.

Adam Grant 29:34 And then there was just a great, um, a great experiment in Scandinavia showing that when smartphones were banned from schools, uh, kids not only got better grades, but they also had better relationships.

Trevor Noah 29:46 Hmm.

Adam Grant 29:46 And their social skills improved more. And so I think there's enough evidence to suggest that there are aspects of smartphones that may not be a net positive for kids that-

Trevor Noah 29:56 Mm-hmm

Adam Grant 29:56 ... like [laughs] a flip phone or a watch is probably good until high school.

Trevor Noah 30:00 Yeah. Like I'm, so, so I'm on, I'm on a journey of trying to de-phonify my life right now.

Adam Grant 30:06 How's that working for you?

Trevor Noah 30:07 It's actually going well. So, so what I've realized is the, the gift of the modern smartphone is, is also its curse, and it's that everything is in one place. And so I'm not saying it is bad, but I just go the collection of everything is actually a curse at times, you know? So it's like imagine if your, imagine if everything that you kept in your house food-wise w- was in the exact same place. I mean, like cake, cupcakes, milk, eggs, bread, uh, you know, beans, you name it, but it was all in the same place. Think about how much more likely you would be To eat a bag of Doritos if, like, it was in the fridge.

Adam Grant 30:45 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 30:46 Do you know what I mean?

Adam Grant 30:46 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 30:46 And so, like I, I think there's like a weird thing. We, we've even done this as humans where we've gone like, "All right. That's the snacks cupboard." So you know that if you open that, there'll be snacks. But if you put the snacks everywhere else, there's a high likelihood-

Adam Grant 30:57 You're gonna get sucked in

Trevor Noah 30:57 ... or a higher, I think, that you're gonna get sucked in. And-

Adam Grant 30:59 Yeah

Trevor Noah 30:59 ... and I think the same thing goes for the smartphone, right? Is like we, we have this thing-

Adam Grant 31:02 This is really good

Trevor Noah 31:03 ... and you go into one part of it, and then all of a sudden you're in another part of it, and you're like, "Wait, uh, what, what, what, how did I get here? What was I doing? How did I..." So I, what I'm trying to do right now is I'm trying to de-phonify my life. So I go, I have the phone. I understand that. But what are the elements of the phone that I can try take out of the phone so that I don't have to take the phone out? Do you know what I mean?

Adam Grant 31:21 Yeah. And then y- your friends don't lose you to your text or your email-

Trevor Noah 31:24 Exactly

Adam Grant 31:24 ... or Instagram.

Trevor Noah 31:25 Yeah, the look down.

Adam Grant 31:26 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 31:26 You know? The look down. And I, so I'm, I'm like trying to do that because, you know, to your point of like what's the bad thing about, I don't think... It's like i- it's a, it's a, it's an unwelcome second system effect. It's a thing that we didn't necessarily consider-

Adam Grant 31:38 Yeah

Trevor Noah 31:38 ... would happen when we made our phones our flashlights, our phones, our email, our computers, our recording devices, our everything.

Adam Grant 31:46 I think your strategy is much better than what most people do, which is they just try to use willpower.

Trevor Noah 31:50 Hm.

Adam Grant 31:51 And the problem is nobody has enough self-control to resist every temptation that a phone brings.

Trevor Noah 31:56 Man, I wish you were around when I was a kid just so you could say that to my mom. "No one has enough self-control, Mom."

Adam Grant 32:01 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 32:02 Professional psychologist just said it. [upbeat music] Don't go anywhere, 'cause we got more What Now? after this. [upbeat music] Is it true that willpower, like, i- is, is a finite resource?

Adam Grant 32:19 It's a, there's a huge debate about that. I think my read of the evidence, and I, just to be clear, um, I didn't buy a lot of the evidence when it was coming out.

Trevor Noah 32:27 Okay.

Adam Grant 32:27 So I, this could be confirmation bias. But I think that what looked like ability is actually motivation. So let me give you a classic example of this.

Trevor Noah 32:35 Go.

Adam Grant 32:36 All right. So this is, this is an old, old experiment.

Trevor Noah 32:38 Okay, go on.

Adam Grant 32:38 Uh, not, not today's standards of rigor. But people are brought into the lab, and they have to just write endlessly-

Trevor Noah 32:45 Okay

Adam Grant 32:45 ... for hours and hours and hours. And you're told that you're, you're supposed to write until you can't anymore, essentially.

Trevor Noah 32:52 Hm.

Adam Grant 32:52 So your hand is too cramped.

Trevor Noah 32:53 Okay.

Adam Grant 32:54 And you finish writing.

Trevor Noah 32:55 Yeah.

Adam Grant 32:56 And then you have to sign a form to get paid. And no one complains that their hand hurts while they sign the form. It's a little context switch. And this task that was impossible to you, that you had exhausted your self-control to keep doing-

Trevor Noah 33:09 'Cause you said you cannot write anymore

Adam Grant 33:11 ... you can't. You're done. Oh, sign this thing? Oh, no problem. Didn't even cross my mind. And so I think what a lot of us have called willpower is actually just motivation. It's not self-control. It's a question of, do you want this outcome? Does it matter to you? Are you excited about it? And if the answer is yes, you're gonna find the willpower.

Trevor Noah 33:31 So then are you saying that the motivation exerted upon us by snacks or junk food or social media is more powerful than the motivation that the gym exerts on us?

Adam Grant 33:44 In the moment, yeah.

Trevor Noah 33:45 Yeah, yeah.

Adam Grant 33:45 Because the-

Trevor Noah 33:45 Like in that-

Adam Grant 33:46 Yeah. Psychologists would say that the, the snacks are a want and the gym is a should.

Trevor Noah 33:50 Okay.

Adam Grant 33:50 And the wants are, they, the wants exert a greater pull than shoulds do. But we can outsmart the wants by making the shoulds, um, built into our habits or by making the wants less tempting. I think that other people play a huge role in this too. So, um, you know the, the famous marshmallow test?

Trevor Noah 34:09 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Adam Grant 34:10 So the original version is, uh, we put a marshmallow in front of you. You're a toddler.

Trevor Noah 34:14 Yes.

Adam Grant 34:14 And you're told you can have it now, but if you're willing to wait a little while, then you get two marshmallows.

Trevor Noah 34:18 You get a second one. Okay.

Adam Grant 34:19 Exactly. And then the amount of time that you delay the gratification predicts your SAT score and your grades in school, and it's supposed to be a measure of your willpower.

Trevor Noah 34:29 Mm-hmm.

Adam Grant 34:30 But to my point about motivation, um, there's a recent replication of the marshmallow experiment where, um, some of the kids are told that, uh, another child will get a second marshmallow if they can wait.

Trevor Noah 34:42 And what happens?

Adam Grant 34:43 And their, quote, unquote, "willpower" goes up. They don't wanna let the other kid down.

Trevor Noah 34:49 Is the other kid there staring at them?

Adam Grant 34:50 No.

Trevor Noah 34:51 They, they're just told about the idea of another kid?

Adam Grant 34:53 Yeah. Just knowing that another kid could lose a marshmallow because of you is enough to, to amplify your motivation, and you wait a little bit longer. Are you doing that because you care about the, the other kid enjoying the gooey treat?

Trevor Noah 35:06 Yes.

Adam Grant 35:06 Could be part of it. Are you also doing that because you don't wanna feel guilty about letting that kid down?

Trevor Noah 35:11 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Adam Grant 35:12 Yeah. But it doesn't matter whether it's one or the other or a combination of the two. At the end of the day, I think Maya Angelou said, um, "I'm counting on you counting on me."

Trevor Noah 35:22 So let, let's-

Adam Grant 35:22 And that's what's happening here

Trevor Noah 35:23 ... let's, let's, let's take that, you know, out of that world and think, did they ask, did they ever try playing around with who the k- they told the kids was gonna get the marshmallow?

Adam Grant 35:36 I don't know.

Trevor Noah 35:36 Like, 'cause I'll be fascinated if, like, if they said, "Hey, there's an adult in the other room who'll get an, a marshmallow."

Adam Grant 35:42 Do they care as much?

Trevor Noah 35:43 "Hey, there's a grandmother who, there's a grandfather. There's a dog. There's a sheep. Hey, the devil is in the next room, and, like Satan, and if you wait, Satan will get an extra marshmallow," I wonder what the result would be. And the reason I ask it is because I think about, like, extrapolating this to larger society. And I go, it makes sense to me that a kid would think of another kid when holding out on taking a marshmallow.

Adam Grant 36:13 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 36:13 Right? Because they go, "If I get, I'll get another one, and they'll get another one. Us kids get more." Right? What happens when that kid no longer thinks that the other thing is like them?

Adam Grant 36:23 Yep.

Trevor Noah 36:24 Do, do you know what I mean?

Adam Grant 36:25 I do.

Trevor Noah 36:25 And then the question I have for you is, how do we then overcome that in society? 'Cause we see it in everything, right? In America, we're getting to a point where Republicans and Democrats no longer see each other as human beings.

Adam Grant 36:39 Mm.

Trevor Noah 36:39 You know? You take it everywhere. You take it everywhere. You know? Israel-Palestine is a great example. And one thing that always strikes me is when I talk to friends, especially from the region, is they'll be like, "Man, we're a lot more similar than you guys think we are from the outside."

Adam Grant 36:53 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 36:53 "And this is a lot more, like, heinous for us as human beings than, you know, people sort of play around with it." And I, I... So I wonder, is there, like, a way to improve that? Or is there a way to understand why we do or don't see somebody as being a kid in the other room who might get a marshmallow?

Adam Grant 37:11 Oh, there, there, there's so many things we could think about there. First one is Li- Lee Ross did this experiment years ago, before it was nearly as polarized as it, as it is now. But it was Israel and Palestine at the time.

Trevor Noah 37:23 Yeah.

Adam Grant 37:23 It was a test of allegiance. Uh, so people are, people who are strongly either pro-Palestine or pro-Israel are presented with peace plans, uh, from the other side. And the question is, how do they feel about them? And they're also presented with plans from their own side. And it turns out the content of the plan is irrelevant. What matters is what group you think created it. So if you're pro-Palestine-

Trevor Noah 37:45 Right

Adam Grant 37:45 ... you're more excited about the plan that Is- Israelis came up with if it was labeled a Palestinian plan than you are your own country's plan-

Trevor Noah 37:53 Yeah

Adam Grant 37:53 ... if it was labeled an Israeli plan.

Trevor Noah 37:54 Right.

Adam Grant 37:55 And I think that really just speaks to your point about both in-group loyalty and out-group distrust or maybe even dehumanization.

Trevor Noah 38:04 So we feel if we think the idea's coming from somebody that we don't trust or somebody that we don't feel holds the same values as we do as a human, we're less likely to take on that idea.

Adam Grant 38:14 Throw it out. I think most psychologists would tell you that, uh, the majority of prejudice is driven not originally by out-group hate, but by in-group love.

Trevor Noah 38:27 Oh, wait, wait, say more about that.

Adam Grant 38:29 Well, I think the, the classic finding is that, like, people will, they'll, they'll attach to a group-

Trevor Noah 38:34 Yeah

Adam Grant 38:34 ... when they have the, the most minimal and trivial cues of groupness. Uh, like, you know, you can, you can just put people in a room together and say, "Come up with a name for your group," and all of a sudden that group is good. And any group that's not us, well, we have to treat them a little bit differently.

Trevor Noah 38:50 It's that simple.

Adam Grant 38:51 It, it often is. We see it happen all around us. So one of the things Tim Kandra and I did a few years ago was we said, "Okay, part of what people don't think about is they think about the group that they belong to as, um, as part of their essence."

Trevor Noah 39:06 Mm-hmm.

Adam Grant 39:06 "It's who I am."

Trevor Noah 39:07 Mm-hmm.

Adam Grant 39:07 But if you run the counterfactual, it's very possible you could have belonged to a different group.

Trevor Noah 39:12 Right.

Adam Grant 39:13 So we started out with a really simple example. We did, um, Red Sox and Yankees fans, given that that's one of the most intense rivalries in American sports.

Trevor Noah 39:19 It is indeed.

Adam Grant 39:20 What we did was we said, uh, "We want you to just, uh, write about what it would be like if you're a Yankees fan to have grown up in Boston." And then they're less nasty to the other side after doing that.

Trevor Noah 39:33 Wh- why?

Adam Grant 39:34 It seems to be the case that they start to see more similarities between them and the people that they thought were their enemy, and they realize, like, "Wow, this deep allegiance that I thought this was who I am-

Trevor Noah 39:45 Mm-hmm

Adam Grant 39:46 ... it's actually just an accident of birth or where my parents happened to live at a given time." And then we said, "Okay, well what if, what if this process of counterfactual thinking could go bigger than baseball rivalries?"

Trevor Noah 39:57 Mm-hmm.

Adam Grant 39:58 So we had people on opposite sides of guns and abortion do the same exercise. And we said, "Okay, if, uh, if you're somebody who's, um, who's very strongly, um, gun safety-

Trevor Noah 40:09 Yeah, yeah

Adam Grant 40:09 ... uh, imagine you grew up hunting, um, in, you know, in the South-

Trevor Noah 40:13 Mm-hmm

Adam Grant 40:14 ... with your family. How might you feel differently?" Um, and we found that not only were people, uh, more open to having a genuine disagreement with the other side, not only more, were they more willing to listen to their challenging opinions, they were more interested in dating somebody who disagreed with them.

Trevor Noah 40:30 Oh, that, that switched quick.

Adam Grant 40:31 Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 40:32 Yeah. Wow.

Adam Grant 40:33 And al- I mean, this is literally a one-minute intervention. Now the problem is a lot of people won't do the exercise in the first place, right? So I sit down with somebody and I say-

Trevor Noah 40:41 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Adam Grant 40:41 ... "Hey Trevor, like, imagine you'd grown up..." Well, I wouldn't have been raised in those circumstances.

Trevor Noah 40:44 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Adam Grant 40:46 So I w- I think that's the next step is, is to figure out how to get people to engage with that.

Trevor Noah 40:51 Yeah. It's ... I often, I often wonder if this is a... You know, I, I sometimes think of it as a failure of leadership. You know, um, there's a ... So for instance, A- America's a good example. You know, the ascent of Donald Trump I found particularly interesting because he was the first politician I had seen in America who really made it zero sum in a way that I, I'd never really seen any poli- politicians do before, you know? Doesn't matter if it's like George Bush, it doesn't matter if it's Bill Clinton. There was always an element of, like, reach across the aisle and w- And now Trump has gone like, "No. Actually, forget that. No reaching, no shaking hands, no nothing. You're scum of the earth." You know what I mean? And I'm in- I'm intrigued by why that attitude, which we're seeing around the world, by the way. I'm not saying this is a Donald Trump thing. Why is that more seductive than the people who say, "Let's see it from the other side. Let's shake hands. Let's think about this. Let's find..." Like, why is it more seductive if the other one makes us better human beings to each other?

Adam Grant 42:03 I think it's not a coincidence, as you said, that this is happening around the world.

Trevor Noah 42:06 Yeah.

Adam Grant 42:07 And I think that it's happening around the world in a context of perceived scarcity and fear of loss.

Trevor Noah 42:13 Oh, yeah.

Adam Grant 42:14 So the, the American version is this is the first generation on record that is not gonna be better off than their parents. And you, if you're sitting around worrying about that all the time, it is really appealing to have somebody who tells you, uh, "I alone can fix this."

Trevor Noah 42:30 So from a psychology standpoint, how do we fix it?

Adam Grant 42:34 The Heineken commercial is a good start.

Trevor Noah 42:36 [laughs] I'm sorry?

Adam Grant 42:37 You've seen the Heineken commercial, right?

Trevor Noah 42:39 Which one?

Adam Grant 42:40 There, there was, there was just a, a massive experiment where I think psychologists submitted at least two dozen different interventions to try to bridge divides.

Trevor Noah 42:47 Okay.

Adam Grant 42:47 And the Heineken commercial beat all of them

Trevor Noah 42:50 The commercial

Adam Grant 42:50 The commercial. Yeah. Can we pull it?

Trevor Noah 42:53 This one?

Speaker 42:54 I would describe my political views as the new right. I'd say like I'm left.

Trevor Noah 42:59 So it's a four-minute Heineken ad where essentially they bring people together, they play us their, I guess, main belief.

Speaker 43:06 If somebody said to me that climate change is destroying the world, then I'd say that is total piffle.

Trevor Noah 43:11 You know, I'm anti-trans, I'm a feminist, uh, I hate feminists, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 43:17 To transgender, it is very odd. I am a daughter, a wife. I am transgender.

Trevor Noah 43:26 They put the people who have the opposing beliefs with each other, then they give them a series of tasks to complete, and then they s- expose to them the main belief that other people have that I guess differs, and then they agree and they sit down and they have a beer.

Speaker 43:40 Even if you wanted to, to convince people about your point, the productive thing to do would be to sit down, have a beer- It's engage. Just engage I've been brought up in a way where everything's black and white. But life isn't black and white. Yeah, life would just be ...

Trevor Noah 43:54 Now let's go back to what you said th- the ad itself?

Adam Grant 43:58 Yes, this is the amazing thing, is you don't have to go and have the beer or build the box with the person. You just have to watch the ad. It's enough to reduce your prejudice against the other side.

Trevor Noah 44:09 Huh. Why do we think that is?

Adam Grant 44:12 Well, I think what's, what's happening, and you can, you can actually hear some of it in the video, is we're confronting binary bias, which is the basic tendency that people have to oversimplify a complex world into two categories.

Trevor Noah 44:22 Okay.

Adam Grant 44:23 Um, you know, Republicans bad, Democrats good.

Trevor Noah 44:26 Right

Adam Grant 44:27 And showing a 3D view of that and sort of busting that, um, that bubble.

Trevor Noah 44:32 So you know what's interesting about this? G- You talk about coming around full circle. In a weird way it almost feels like we as adults should be living in a world where we watch multiple parents arguing, because then it'll help us be more creative in how we see our connection with other people. Because if, if you think about it, if you show Americans, Republican and Democrat, they believe that there are only two ways to see an issue, there are only two outcomes to every issue-

Adam Grant 45:02 Yeah

Trevor Noah 45:02 ... and there are only two ways to be. That then fundamentally means at the end of the day, just, I mean, averaging and odds and you're probably gonna end up at a 50/50 impasse because that's what it is. But if you found a way to show them sort of an anonymized breakdown of views, people may be more likely to come to more complex conclusions about a varying set of topics.

Adam Grant 45:24 Yes. And I don't need you to think I'm right, I just need you to recognize that you might be wrong.

Trevor Noah 45:29 Huh.

Adam Grant 45:29 Just as I know I might be. And actually, Trevor, there's a really specific example of this that if you were still hosting The Daily Show, I would say do it this fall. Um, Sarah Konrath has tested the effects of changing the maps we show in election seasons, and says there's no such thing as a blue state or a red state.

Trevor Noah 45:45 Right.

Adam Grant 45:45 They're just different proportions.

Trevor Noah 45:46 Yeah.

Adam Grant 45:47 And it turns out if you show people a purple map with different shades, uh, they're actually more, uh, they're more open to the other side and they show less prejudice, less stereotyping, less discrimination.

Trevor Noah 45:57 Well, that's amazing. Why haven't we just done that?

Adam Grant 45:59 I don't know. I think we all should be ... Well, I think we know the answer to that.

Trevor Noah 46:02 It's not, yeah, it's not as dramatic-

Adam Grant 46:02 It doesn't, yeah

Trevor Noah 46:03 ... it's not as ... And I think you see, like this is what I, this is what I mean, is like not that things are c- you know, again, not the binary good or bad, but if you look at like, if you look at incentives, in many ways I would say like the news in, in and around the world has tendencies that the snack and junk food industry has.

Adam Grant 46:22 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 46:22 And that it is trying to maximize. So if they show you a red and blue map, it makes you feel like you are engaged in a battle where one side is encroaching and you are either winning or you are losing, but you really see this thing visually. Showing me a shades of purplish map is just like you've now just shown me the United States of America.

Adam Grant 46:39 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 46:39 Which is not scary, is not as exciting, and so it's like i- in a weird way it's almost like that's what we have to ask ourselves, is where do the incentives lie? If the news has an incentive to keep you watching, unfortunately that incentive will probably be best served by them making you feel like everything is always ending and then people are coming to get you, right?

Adam Grant 47:00 Maybe.

Trevor Noah 47:01 I think so.

Adam Grant 47:02 I don't know. I mean-

Trevor Noah 47:03 Oh

Adam Grant 47:04 ... y- people are gonna listen to this podcast. They might even watch it. We haven't discussed any urgent news or any headlines.

Trevor Noah 47:11 Yes.

Adam Grant 47:12 There's, there's a, there's a huge appetite for long-form, thoughtful, complexified conversation.

Trevor Noah 47:18 Yes.

Adam Grant 47:19 I don't think we've figured out how to put that on TV.

Trevor Noah 47:21 Yeah, in a weird way it goes back to the incentives and who's running them or controlling them.

Adam Grant 47:25 It does, but I think on the margins there are still things we can do. So like w- we were talking earlier about, uh, people not trusting science, and I think a huge reason why that happened is, um, science was oversimplified. And so what, what we ought to say is, you know, "Here's an initial study, and the best available evidence points in the following direction, but here are the caveats," right?

Trevor Noah 47:44 Right.

Adam Grant 47:44 You see that in any scientific paper you read.

Trevor Noah 47:46 Right.

Adam Grant 47:46 Well, journalists are afraid to do that because they think it undermines interest.

Trevor Noah 47:50 Yes.

Adam Grant 47:50 It doesn't. Um, there are a whole bunch of studies, which I should caveat, we don't know if, uh-

Trevor Noah 47:55 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm

Adam Grant 47:55 ... if they're gonna continue to replicate, but people are just as interested, and they read with healthy skepticism and they appreciate the complexity.

Trevor Noah 48:02 So then let me ask you this. Using everything you've taught me in this conversation, how do you think you will bridge or reevaluate your relationship with the friend of yours who believes in astrology and you had like a, a little like ranty bust-up with? What, what do you, what do you think you can do now to connect with them?

Adam Grant 48:27 What do you think I should do?

Trevor Noah 48:28 I would start with the like apologies, just be like, "Hey, man, really sorry. You know me, science, I put science above everything, and studies have actually shown that, uh, people like me are less likely to, uh, be open to a different opinion and, and so yeah, man. Anyway, it's actually funny, I wouldn't have usually done that, but Mercury's in retrograde-

Adam Grant 48:48 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 48:49 ... and that, that probably contributed to my inability To, um, connect with you as a person. And then if, if they laugh, then, you know, you're, you're in the space. And then if they don't, you can be like, "I'm joking," or whatever. Then maybe you, you know, you find like a little bridge and you know their sense of humor and you know what connected you in the first place, and then you go from there. And then you're like, "Anyway, how's li-", and I think that is enough. I don't think you're supposed to solve it there, personally. Let's sort of build the scaffolding around this, this fracture in the column of our friendship, and then when that scaffolding's intact, at some point you can come back, joke, laugh, connect, and whatever. 'Cause I don't think you need to agree with your friends on everything, but if you get back to remembering that they're a human being, I do find you can, you can have, like, a really wonderful relationship where you can even now mock each other about that and just be like, "Yeah, of course. What are you gonna say about that? What are you gonna say?" I, I think that's what I would think.

Adam Grant 49:39 I lo- I love this. Do you, do you talk about astrology again? Or do you just-

Trevor Noah 49:43 Yeah, but I think-

Adam Grant 49:43 ... leave it aside?

Trevor Noah 49:44 Yeah, but I think you, it's, it's, it's, it's no different to a limb that is injured, right? Why do we put people on crutches? We put people on crutches so that they can stay off the limb that's hurt, right? Now, in, in the long term, you intend to get back on that limb and you're gonna do some physical therapy. But for the short term, it's like, stay, stay off of it. And then next thing you know, you're back at single leg squats and, and you're in the game. And I think, I believe that that point of a friendship actually becomes greater because now you have a rift that you've repaired, and I sometimes think, I sometimes think the most important connections you'll make are actually in the rifts. I think those moments is where, like, the, the real, like, like, core of a friendship actually exists and, like, the strength of it.

Adam Grant 50:28 Why?

Trevor Noah 50:30 Because I think you've now built a new type of trust. You've shown to each other that you have the ability to come back from anything.

Adam Grant 50:38 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 50:38 And I think that resilience might be more important-

Adam Grant 50:41 Yeah

Trevor Noah 50:41 ... than just, like, a, like, a theoretical willingness. And so you can then laugh and go like, "Man, remember that fight we had? Remember that shit that went wrong? Remember that? Ha, wow, that was, I can't believe we ... Man, that was ..." That's what I think.

Adam Grant 50:52 So you've, you've proven your commitment to each other also, as part of that, it seems.

Trevor Noah 50:56 Yeah, yeah. So that's what I'm trying to work on-

Adam Grant 50:58 Yeah

Trevor Noah 50:58 ... in my life with people, is I go like, "All right, I disagree with that. Have we short up every other part of our lives? All right, let's tap on that a little bit. How are you feeling about that today? Let's chat a little bit more. Have you seen this? What is your perspective on this?" I find that helps me a lot with people as I go, "I read this article. I would like to know how you, how you see this and how you perceive it before I say anything." And I find, and that's maybe why I keep them and, and call them friends, I find the people who I have in my life are willing to say, "Yeah, actually, that's not ... Or this was ... " And I find over the years and over the months, our conversations have become a lot softer at the edges than they once would have been.

Adam Grant 51:36 Uh, th- this, I think you missed a calling as a therapist slash life coach.

Trevor Noah 51:40 [laughs] No. No, no, no.

Adam Grant 51:42 Well, you do it masterfully, and I, I can't help but react to one thing that you just highlighted, which is I don't think character is, is how you treat people when things are going your way. It's how you show up on a hard day.

Trevor Noah 51:53 Mm.

Adam Grant 51:54 And I think true character is what do you do when your values are tested?

Trevor Noah 51:59 Yeah. What do you do when your values are tested? Damn. What do you do when your values are tested? Well, we'll leave everyone thinking of that one. Adam Grant, it's always a pleasure chatting to you.

Adam Grant 52:11 Honor is mine, Trevor. Thank you. It's a blast, as always.

Trevor Noah 52:16 [upbeat music] What Now? with Trevor Noah is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin, and Jody Avigan. Our senior producer is Jess Hackel. Claire Slaughter is our producer. Music mixing and mastering by Hannes Brown. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next Thursday for another episode of What Now? [upbeat music]