The Art of Manliness - #77 Mindwise With Juliana Schroeder

00:00:00.000 Hey everyone, Brett McKay here and welcome back to another edition of the Art of Manliness

00:00:19.400 podcast.

00:00:20.380 So today's podcast, I'm talking to Juliana Schroeder.

00:00:24.140 She is a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business where she's

00:00:30.300 specializing in social cognition, decision and judgment and she's a research assistant

00:00:35.800 for a guy named Nicholas Eppley who wrote a book called MindWise which is a really fascinating

00:00:41.520 book and it's all about how our brains are evolved to read the minds of others and we'll

00:00:49.100 get into that what that means reading minds of others but in a nutshell it means something

00:00:52.600 we do every day whenever someone says something that might be sort of obtuse you know it's

00:00:58.360 not very explicit we our brains try to figure out what that person really means either through

00:01:03.860 looking at body language looking at where they look the context a whole bunch of things to

00:01:09.620 figure out what the other person is thinking and the research suggests that our brains are

00:01:14.340 evolved for this sort of mind reading and in the research for this book Juliana and Nicholas

00:01:18.640 uncovered a lot of cool insights about social cognition and how our brain works whenever

00:01:23.760 we try to read the minds of others and we're going to talk about that today I think there's

00:01:28.080 a lot of great practical takeaways you can take away from this research so for example we're

00:01:31.820 going to going to talk about how whenever you gain status in some way either through position

00:01:37.900 or through money there's a tendency to dehumanize others where you think they're like not really

00:01:43.340 a person so you kind of treat them not that great and we're going to talk about what you

00:01:48.040 can do to avoid that we're going to talk about how men and women mind reading differently and

00:01:52.760 how they also do it very similarly we're also going to talk about the benefits that we get

00:01:57.340 from engaging with the minds of others through small talk so there's a really a lot of cool

00:02:03.560 stuff I think you're really going to enjoy this podcast I'll give you a heads up Skype was

00:02:08.020 kind of acting funky this day when we did the podcast so there's some parts that are pretty

00:02:11.740 choppy I apologize that in advance I'm trying to work out a better solution to the podcast

00:02:17.180 interview set up so hopefully we'll that won't be a problem anymore all right so let's do this

00:02:22.880 mind wise with Juliana Schroeder all right Juliana Schroeder welcome to the show thanks for having me

00:02:32.520 okay so you are a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago School of Business in behavioral science

00:02:39.280 correct that's right I'm actually doing a joint degree program in behavioral science and social

00:02:44.900 psychology okay and you've been working under Nicholas Epley that's right he's my primary

00:02:50.420 advisor okay well so he wrote this book it's really interesting called mind wise and you from what he

00:02:56.460 told me you've helped him with this you did a lot of the research a lot of the the grunt work on this

00:03:00.600 and uh well I helped a little bit but you know with all his writing and he's sort of absolutely the

00:03:06.200 brains behind a lot yeah well it gives me more credit than I do probably well that's it's very kind

00:03:12.460 I mean I'm sure you you did a lot more than you think you did we'll talk about that actually because

00:03:16.380 that's kind of yeah actually that's a good segue into some of the research yeah um so mind wise he

00:03:22.280 makes the case in the book that we're that we're as human beings we're evolved to be mind readers

00:03:26.620 and that it's our sixth sense uh what does he mean by that how are we mind readers

00:03:31.180 um so so what he means by that is that you know humans are social animals and so every single day

00:03:39.960 um we're interacting with other people there's almost nothing that we do that doesn't involve

00:03:45.080 at least the presence of other people if not physically interacting with them any sort of

00:03:49.440 big goal that that we want to be able to fulfill is going to involve having others um in some

00:03:56.440 way and so in that sense we're constantly interacting with other people and we need to

00:04:01.620 coordinate with them so um some actual researchers have suggested that um one of the reasons that we

00:04:08.400 develop language is in order to coordinate socially um to sort of express what's on our minds so

00:04:14.480 there's a reason why Nick calls it our sixth sense is to go sort of every single day we have to think

00:04:20.380 about what is going on in other people's minds we have to be able to um coordinate with them we have

00:04:25.640 to be able to try to predict that and intuit that and even though we have actually no direct access

00:04:31.620 into their mind so language might be one of the closest um way sort of the most direct ways in fact

00:04:36.900 that we can tell what's going on in someone's mind because they say explicitly verbally tell us um

00:04:43.020 then you can also look at the non-verbal cues as well but those are often not quite as informative

00:04:47.720 um and so we have to sort of try to read the minds of others um by using sort of a number of different

00:04:55.500 strategies okay is this the same as theory of mind um so theory of mind is uh essentially an umbrella

00:05:01.980 term that describes sort of the the theories essentially that we have about other people's minds

00:05:08.940 and so um being able to read a mind it's sort of a more specific differentiation of that so being

00:05:15.920 able to sort of i might for example i might have a theory that you um are sort of as competent and

00:05:22.160 as feeling as i am in lots of different ways but i might not be able to specifically intuit exactly

00:05:28.440 what it is that you're thinking in the moment that we're having this conversation okay so i think

00:05:32.600 they're sort of very similar term but my reading is a little bit more specific in the way that nick is

00:05:37.720 referring to it okay so examples of mind reading are would be like um just figuring out like what people

00:05:44.620 think about you right when you're having a conversation like am i coming off well to this

00:05:48.460 person is that example of mind reading exactly so i mean right now we're sort of in this difficult

00:05:53.340 situation where we're having a phone conversation i can't sort of see your face but i can hear the

00:05:58.760 words that you know you're speaking and i'm trying to sort of anticipate your questions as i come of

00:06:03.280 course i've had some extra help on this because you sent me some of the questions um but also trying

00:06:08.260 to guess what it is that you're what it is that you are thinking as it is as i'm talking so that's

00:06:13.920 a somewhat difficult task but i'm doing it sort of intuitively and innately online i'm thinking of

00:06:20.780 what you're thinking as i speak and it's it's difficult if you break it down but in fact you

00:06:26.820 know this is something that we're doing all the time and we have to do all the time every time that

00:06:31.760 we communicate with someone interesting so like also like when you for example when i talk to my wife

00:06:36.120 and then i say something and then i can tell she i mean i'm trying to figure out did she like respond

00:06:42.420 well to what i said like you're trying to read that body language is that like that's mind reading

00:06:45.760 again right there uh yeah nick actually has a great story where he gave a gift to his wife and she

00:06:52.640 started crying and she thought that she was very very upset about the gift but in fact she was crying

00:06:57.840 because she was so happy because she loved it so much and so sometimes when you focus in on like a

00:07:03.160 specific non-verbal cue it can be a little bit misleading and um in particular people really

00:07:08.540 seem to have the sense that they can read other people's cues pretty accurately and they tend to

00:07:15.780 sort of overestimate the extent to which they're actually able to do that so i think that you know

00:07:20.740 i'll be able to tell what you're feeling and what you're thinking just based on sort of reading your

00:07:25.720 face but in fact that's actually very very difficult to do okay people tend to be pretty bad at it

00:07:31.200 yeah yeah we'll talk a little bit about that um because yeah while we're evolved for it like we do

00:07:36.220 it we we mind read all the time without really thinking about it and we're actually pretty good

00:07:40.260 at it um we do make a lot of mistakes and um one of the ways that we fail to successfully read the

00:07:48.500 mind of others is when we dehumanize them and i guess this is an area that you specialize in and

00:07:54.520 you've been doing a lot of research on is that correct sure so dehumanization is sort of an

00:08:00.200 one of the more extreme consequences of not being able to read someone's mind and so as opposed to

00:08:07.540 simply sort of mispredicting the valence you'll maybe sound happy in in the last thing that you

00:08:13.240 said and so i i think you're really extremely happy but in fact you aren't so happy so i might just make

00:08:17.900 up a misprediction and like that dehumanization is more like i completely sort of overlook um a

00:08:24.840 fundamental aspect of your mind either the ability to think or the ability that you have to feel

00:08:30.180 um and so this kind of happens in one of two ways um one is like i mentioned sort of just overlooking

00:08:37.520 it so lots of factors sort of lead us to sort of just fail to see what's going on in other people's

00:08:43.460 minds um even just egocentricism like being inside my own head can lead me to overlook what's going on

00:08:49.860 in sort of other people's heads um and that kind of dehumanization is um something that we've

00:08:55.060 recently termed dehumanization by omission so we're just sort of overlooking um what's going

00:09:01.800 on in someone else's mind for a number of possible reasons which we can talk about and then there's a

00:09:07.080 second kind which is um what people tend to think of when we use the term dehumanization and we call

00:09:13.580 this dehumanization by commission which is more of the overt proactive um in the cases of groups that

00:09:20.560 are enemies that have historical conflict um the dehumanization which is really antagonistic

00:09:25.480 so like i have some research on um palestinians and israelis um and sort of how they perceive each

00:09:32.840 other and sort of ways to overcome that and so that's the dehumanization by commission a really

00:09:37.980 aggressive dehumanization so there's these sort of two pathways and people conflate them a lot

00:09:43.460 and they lead to some of the same outcomes interestingly enough so you might think that sort of

00:09:50.560 being um aggressive and antagonistic towards someone would lead to really different outcomes

00:09:56.620 than just merely being apathetic and overlooking aspects of their mind but in fact some of the

00:10:01.700 outcomes are kind of similar which is interesting interesting so i mean basically what dehumanization

00:10:05.400 does is that you look at the person you don't you think they're mindless like they don't have a mind

00:10:10.520 right so it's like not worth even trying to read yeah essentially um yeah you basically either think

00:10:16.580 they sort of don't have much competence or you don't sort of understand or see their agency

00:10:21.920 or the other side of it is um not being able to see that they have the ability to feel so sort of

00:10:28.760 assuming that they're emotionless um and unfeeling okay gotcha so uh so i guess an example of i mean

00:10:36.940 would this be an example of the uh dehumanization by omission there's been some research lately that said

00:10:42.420 that uh rich people or people in positions of authority or power are less empathetic

00:10:47.360 um absolutely yeah absolutely so i mean how does how does that why is it so i guess

00:10:55.040 is it just because like you think like what i mean like positions of power it's like even doctors

00:11:00.460 right might look at their patients as a mindless person like they dehumanize them in a way i don't

00:11:08.000 think they do it purposely but they do can you talk about that a little bit yeah absolutely so um

00:11:13.840 there's a couple different lines of research that you're referring to so one of them um is the idea

00:11:20.360 that when people have resources and you can think of that as power or money um or status being high

00:11:26.980 status that sort of um frees them from be from having to worry about others as much or having to think

00:11:33.620 about others as much and so it causes them to become more self-centered and more narcissistic

00:11:39.280 so there's actually like fantastic research that shows that just making people feel like they have

00:11:44.420 more power causes them to like look in the mirror more at themselves when they have the opportunity to

00:11:48.860 do so and also it causes them to um sort of show less compassion for others so um so one study that i

00:11:57.440 really like they looked at um it's a field study where basically the researchers um just stood at

00:12:03.660 pedestrian crosswalks and they had some um a confederate standing at the crosswalk trying to

00:12:09.720 cross the street and they basically looked at the cars that were willing to stop for the person and let

00:12:14.400 them go and cars that would not stop and cut the person off and the cars that cut the person off

00:12:20.980 tended to be uh cars that more rich people would buy so the more expensive cars are the ones that

00:12:27.320 were more likely to cut people off and so you can sort of imagine all sorts of reasons why this

00:12:31.680 might be the case but essentially um what a lot of uh research has suggested is that people

00:12:37.640 there's something called the social distance theory of people who have more resources can be more

00:12:42.460 distant from others because they're more independent they don't need others as much and so therefore

00:12:47.860 they just simply don't have sort of the motivation to think about them and power operates in much the

00:12:55.100 same way where if you're in a high power position you may um use other people like as an employee you

00:13:02.420 might use employees in order to fulfill certain work goals so you might not be sort of focused on

00:13:06.240 them as humans or as people you don't you you don't have to do so because you're in high power and so

00:13:12.000 you know you're not sort of fundamentally connected that to them in such a way that you would need to

00:13:16.820 be paying attention to them so i mean and this happens with doctors too because like sometimes people

00:13:21.880 go to the doctor you're like i feel like my doctor doesn't listen to me yeah so we think there's

00:13:25.680 actually something a little bit different going on with physicians and um yeah i mean absolutely so

00:13:31.240 physicians are high status and and often high power um and so there could be simply the idea that they

00:13:37.960 have resources but there's um other like specific aspects that pertain to physicians which is that um

00:13:45.460 a patient to them there's a couple things one is that a patient it sort of represents a health

00:13:51.400 problem that needs to be fixed and so in that sense um patients often become sort of a goal that

00:13:57.820 needs to be sort of satisfied and so they become they become what their health problem is and they're

00:14:03.520 construed as such so you might often hear like a physician who talks about a patient not in terms of

00:14:08.600 their name like this is my patient juliana but in terms of her problem like she has thyroid cancer so i'm

00:14:13.140 just thinking about how to solve the cancer and another thing particularly with physicians is that

00:14:20.660 um there's been some research that suggests that if they get too involved with their patients and if

00:14:26.500 they really feel their patients um all their emotions and their pain and really empathize with

00:14:32.440 them that can actually lead to burnout um which can actually be negative for both parties in the

00:14:37.660 interaction um so in fact uh it's been shown that through medical school sort of when um medical

00:14:44.840 students start school they do show more compassion but they actually learn to sort of reduce that over

00:14:51.760 time and that can actually be adaptive for them because of the less burnouts the people who are best

00:14:58.120 able to sort of detach from their patients are often the ones who don't burn out as quickly

00:15:03.100 i have a friend uh from high school he he's a medical student or i guess he's done now but he um

00:15:09.840 when he went into it he had he was very like he did it for like all the right reasons right very

00:15:14.660 idealistic and then i remember talking to him i was in new york city one for a business trip and uh he

00:15:20.760 was doing his residency at jamaica queens which is like just this there's all this stuff there's a lot

00:15:25.740 of just a lot of churn going on there in the er and he'd become really jaded in a lot of ways it's

00:15:31.300 really surprising because i he just uh he kind of became detached um a little bit and i think but

00:15:36.680 he's done well i mean he survived and i think he he kind of talked about this like if i don't like

00:15:40.600 you just get burnt out um when you try to just be empathetic all the time with these these patients

00:15:47.140 um so that's right it's really interesting yeah i mean you can imagine that there's some sort of

00:15:52.320 self-protection that needs to happen in order for you to sort of survive the day-to-day duties of

00:15:58.480 seeing people die and witnessing that and not getting overly involved in that but at the same

00:16:03.040 time you know patients clearly state that they want their physicians to show them empathy that they

00:16:09.100 really look for those patient focused emotions in their physicians um and so as a physician you kind

00:16:16.380 of have to balance between those two okay so here's the question how do you avoid that um dehumanization

00:16:23.900 as you gain in status whether you know you make you become more fluent than your friends or those

00:16:29.980 around you or you gain power in some way uh how do you avoid that dehumanization where you don't think

00:16:37.440 about others and treat others like they don't have a mind yeah that's a great question so so because

00:16:43.920 this tends to fall into the category of what we call the dehumanization by omission where it's not that

00:16:49.860 people are you know consciously trying to you know dehumanize others it's more just that they are no

00:16:58.700 longer motivated and no longer need to really care a lot about other people's mental states um if you

00:17:06.200 can motivate them um certainly they are able to sort of notice everyone's mental state so in one study

00:17:13.820 for example um they made people into the role of this one experiment they made people um put

00:17:19.480 participants into the role of a manager or an employee and um they had the managers um focusing on

00:17:26.400 uh product oriented goals so they gave the manager all these goals to produce certain products a line

00:17:32.540 of workers who were in a you know a factory set up and um and in that case the managers couldn't

00:17:40.140 afterwards they couldn't remember the workers names they um didn't know much about sort of the

00:17:45.260 workers mental states at all they didn't they didn't notice the workers that much they were just

00:17:49.380 really concerned about producing the products and then in the second condition they had the exact same

00:17:54.120 setup but they told the managers um that they need to be people oriented instead of product oriented

00:18:00.160 they said you're the manager your job is to watch out for the workers um make sure that they are um

00:18:06.940 motivated and enjoying their jobs and you want to really focus on like developing the people

00:18:11.740 relationships in the firm and so in that case the managers were like highly motivated to focus on

00:18:17.860 the workers and then they really noticed everything going on with the workers and they could remember

00:18:21.160 their names afterwards just fine and so it's just a matter of sort of motivating them differently

00:18:25.960 um and so i mean one thing you know as you for example if you were to gain status or power

00:18:32.540 it's simply to just consciously try to remember um try to motivate yourself to think about others to

00:18:40.240 continually think about them and you can even like change aspects of your environment to try to

00:18:45.200 particularly provoke that so you might try to go to lunch you know every day with a person in your

00:18:52.020 environment or some a worker if you're in a farm for example and then that will you know force you to

00:18:57.660 actually focus on them for some set amount of time in a context outside of a work context and it'll

00:19:03.740 make you think about sort of their mind more broadly as opposed to what they can do for you um so you can

00:19:08.760 try to set up those kind of prompts within your sort of environment situation to remind yourself to

00:19:15.320 focus on others interesting so you have to just be more intentional and self-aware i guess

00:19:19.840 about your status because i think that's a problem i think a lot of americans might have

00:19:24.760 is that we like to pretend that we don't have differences in status you know we like to you

00:19:31.640 know we're all very democratic so i think some people who become affluent they're like oh i'm just

00:19:36.140 like everyone else but they they're not you know and so and i think they don't they're not deceiving

00:19:41.580 themselves yeah so it's just you have to be kind of self-aware and i guess we're going to talk

00:19:46.220 about that in and later on in the the podcast because um while we're you know we're not very

00:19:51.640 good sometimes at reading the minds of others we're also not very good at reading our own mind

00:19:55.360 sometimes which is really surprising um but let's get back to this dehumanization dehumanization

00:20:01.600 because i think it's um really there's an interesting article i guess was in the new york times

00:20:05.400 about talking to strangers um and i guess this is it's sort of dehumanization by omission sort of a

00:20:12.300 mild form of it but you know the research that um nick talked about in this article was you know

00:20:17.880 we get into subways or into train cars and like we're just crammed like we're touching people

00:20:23.300 but we like act like they're not there um and we just pretend like they're these sort of bodies and

00:20:30.840 we don't even they don't have minds we don't talk to them the entire time even though we're so

00:20:34.380 physically and intimately close to them or physically why do we do that i mean why is it that we can like be

00:20:40.960 touching a stranger but like we just won't even talk to them or look them in the eye yeah um this

00:20:47.320 is uh great research but nick and i which that we just published a paper on it um and essentially

00:20:53.820 what we find is there um that you know when people are strangers in these environments like public

00:21:00.480 transportation we would look at trains buses even cabs with a cab driver and also even in situations

00:21:07.660 like waiting rooms and grocery stores you know you're surrounded by strangers and you don't think

00:21:12.000 of them as being social agents um you don't think of them as being someone that you could have a

00:21:17.580 conversation with it's more just this person is sort of an obstacle in the case of public transportation

00:21:23.860 they're sort of part of the seat it just happens to be someone in the seat it's not really you think

00:21:28.280 of them more as objects than the sexual people and um part of the reason why um part of the reason why

00:21:36.160 this occurs is because of um social norms that are in place so especially in trains um there are now

00:21:43.400 sort of silent cars where you're not even allowed to have conversations and so no one talks and this

00:21:49.520 is the norm that people tend not to have conversations in trains and stuff like stuff and what that actually

00:21:55.840 ends up causing is um what we call pluralistic ignorance um in which essentially um i perceive i

00:22:05.580 notice that other people who are not talking um i'm very aware of that and i i make an assumption

00:22:11.380 about what they want based on their behavior and so if i i see all these people who aren't talking i

00:22:17.700 assume that means they don't want to talk which seems like a pretty reasonable assumption right so

00:22:22.540 they're not talking that must mean they don't want to be bothered they don't want to talk

00:22:25.500 um but when we actually ask people what they want um they say that they're actually you know they're

00:22:31.640 bored on a one hour long commute into the city in the morning and sometimes they do want to talk

00:22:36.800 um so you might say yeah i'd be relatively interested in having a conversation with someone if we ask them

00:22:42.180 on a scale of one to seven they might be like at a four and then we ask them well what do you think

00:22:46.940 other people would want would other people want that as well and in fact they think other people want it

00:22:51.960 less so other people on a scale from one to seven wouldn't be more like a two or three um and in

00:22:58.100 fact every this happens for everyone though because everyone's at sort of a four and they always

00:23:03.100 underestimate um what the others are at and that's because of pluralistic ignorance they assume that

00:23:08.760 because other people aren't talking they don't want to talk and the reason why no one's talking in

00:23:13.600 the first place is because of the norm so it becomes it basically becomes a really wicked

00:23:17.400 environment which is that nobody's talking then that that's a norm um everyone continues not

00:23:24.100 talking and yet everyone sort of wants to talk a little bit but no one ever learns that that's what

00:23:28.580 other people want because no one starts talking so it's just it's a continual the negative cycle of the

00:23:34.140 wicked environment you never learn that other people might want to talk only way to learn

00:23:37.540 will be of course to break the norm and have a conversation and that's not something people

00:23:42.380 would typically do um some people do this and we force people to do this in a series of experiments

00:23:47.720 um and they actually found out um that it was relevant it was pleasant um to have a conversation

00:23:54.840 with a stranger and this was not something people would have predicted so people will predict it would

00:23:59.700 be terrible to talk with a stranger um in any of these domains that we've looked at um except with the

00:24:06.160 one exception being cab drivers people have a mixed i can talk about that more detail but people have

00:24:11.540 mixed predictions of what that experience will be like and partially that's because some people know

00:24:15.320 what it'll be like because they do talk to their cab drivers but in most of these cases when people

00:24:19.220 don't have an experience with talking they think it'll be a bad experience yeah which makes sense

00:24:23.460 because they don't do it is anything you'll be awkward and the person will say no

00:24:27.620 what right so it's interesting um what it is specifically that's stopping them and people sort of seem to

00:24:37.200 they're idiosyncratic worries about different things so some people seem worried about starting

00:24:42.260 the conversation like you mentioned like they worry that they'll be socially rejected um and in fact

00:24:49.100 uh in all of our experiments we've run so many of these dozens of these experiments um either you know

00:24:56.960 there are some cases in which someone's like wearing headphones or something and they don't respond

00:25:00.800 right away but in all the cases that we ask someone to talk and they report it back to us

00:25:05.920 they always said the other person responded you can imagine that you know in your mind you're

00:25:11.680 thinking oh what if the other person says no and you worry about rejection but if you were actually

00:25:15.900 in that situation you just said hi to someone how hard would it be not to say hi back yeah that's

00:25:22.080 actually i mean then once you say hi then the other person pretty much has to respond back to you

00:25:27.480 um that's not something you you think of immediately but in fact you know when you're in that

00:25:33.080 situation you're sitting next to someone on a bus you say hi the other person is going to respond

00:25:37.980 yeah yeah that's that's a social norm that's what you do exactly and so in fact you know in that sense

00:25:44.360 the social norms are working in direction of your favor and then another sort of little idiosyncratic

00:25:49.020 um concern people have is how to get out of the conversation so we think of these as barriers to

00:25:55.000 entrance and barriers to exit so some people are like how what if it's a bad conversation i can't end it

00:26:00.360 and you know you're stuck on it and particularly we haven't run the airplanes yet but people really

00:26:07.880 have this intuition with airplanes like what if i'm on a 12-hour flight and i can't end the

00:26:12.960 conversation um but in fact you know i think that also is easier than people expect so you know you

00:26:20.460 pull a magazine out and start reading or you put your headphones and there's like these clear signals

00:26:24.820 and then the conversation just sort of ends at that point so i don't think it needs to be i think

00:26:29.700 people really build this up in their mind more so than it would exist in reality which is interesting

00:26:35.560 yeah so the the only person that's making this awkward is you basically a lot of right yeah right

00:26:42.000 you're making it awkward in your own hypothetical scenario that you create in your mind um so talk

00:26:47.340 about the the taxi cab drivers why was that sort of people had sort of mixed reactions on what it

00:26:52.740 would be like or wouldn't wouldn't wouldn't be like yeah so the taxi cabs are really interesting

00:26:58.120 because um it's less of a wicked environment so i mentioned this idea of um robert hogarth term this

00:27:06.120 coined this term called wicked environment in which people never learn because the environment is set up

00:27:12.600 such that the norms are never to begin to have the experiences but you never learn what the experience

00:27:17.240 will be like but um cabs are nice because it's sort of a private environment um so you're not so

00:27:24.620 worried about disturbing other people and also you have to talk to your driver at least a little bit

00:27:29.440 in order to sort of give them the directions of where to go um and so there's sort of an easy

00:27:33.880 icebreaker conversation starter um in that sense and so actually um when we went to the midway

00:27:41.080 international airport in chicago and surveyed travelers who were catching cabs home

00:27:45.460 um about half of them said that they regularly did talk to their cab drivers um which makes sense

00:27:50.960 the environment is sort of set up as such that it would be sort of easier to have that conversation

00:27:54.820 if you wanted to um and so half these people had experience with what that is like and then the

00:28:01.200 other half did not have any experience they said that they have never talked to cab drivers they

00:28:05.880 wouldn't want to do that and um and these people make opposite predictions about what the experience

00:28:11.220 will be like and the people that have talked say it'll be a great experience

00:28:14.760 um the people that have never talked they think it'll be a terrible experience which you know

00:28:19.780 once again make perfect sense that's probably why they talk and don't talk um but what's really

00:28:24.460 interesting is when we then randomly assign people into conditions and one of the conditions ask them

00:28:31.320 to have a conversation and these are both people who normally talk and also people who normally don't

00:28:36.360 talk even the people that normally don't talk we said can can you for the purposes of this study

00:28:41.180 have a conversation with their cab driver today and they agreed and we gave them candy

00:28:46.340 to incentivize them and they agreed to do it and then when they did it and they told us how it was

00:28:52.800 um turns out they were wrong it was pleasant for them in fact it was actually even a little bit more

00:28:57.560 pleasant for them than it was for the people who normally talk and have a conversation but it was

00:29:02.400 at least as pleasant of an experience um yeah for the and so uh basically the people who never

00:29:09.480 talk to their drivers they are wrong about what that experience will be like they think it'll be bad

00:29:14.540 they're wrong about that when they talk they find out that it is actually pleasant on average so they

00:29:20.300 look just like the people on the trains and the buses who never talk and they think it'll be a bad

00:29:24.060 experience and then um there's also this sort of other half of the sample that they do normally talk

00:29:29.460 they know what that'll be like and they're correct and so those are the people who have the experience

00:29:34.240 and they uh and so they are able to sort of change their environments and have these conversations that

00:29:39.420 are giving them some pleasure some happiness on a more regular basis because they sort of figured

00:29:44.440 out what that experience would really be like great so like the takeaway is like talk to strangers

00:29:49.660 or may at least try to talk to strangers because it'll be a lot more pleasant than you think it's going

00:29:53.520 to be yeah i mean i'd say that um so you know nick and i have looked at these environments that are

00:30:00.980 generally tend to be fairly negative so commuting experiences are are one of the worst experiences

00:30:06.560 that people have um so there's a seminal study by daniel kahneman in which they sample they did

00:30:14.440 experience sampling so they had a big sample of women who did all these different things during their day

00:30:20.580 in texas and they every they would give them buzzers and they'd buzz them every couple hours and say

00:30:25.040 what are you doing right now and how are you feeling and so you might be working and you feel kind of

00:30:30.600 generally happy you might be sleeping and you're just woken up you might be reading whatever you might

00:30:36.060 be commuting is one of the things that all these women were commuting a lot and so out of all the

00:30:40.620 different activities that they did during the day their commuting was the worst so if you buzz someone

00:30:46.200 during their commute and say how are you feeling people say they're really unhappy it's not it's

00:30:51.760 not a good time for them generally during the day and so i mean but you can imagine particularly

00:30:56.220 in these it's sort of the perfect environment where you're not that happy to begin with there's not

00:31:01.920 much to do um that's a really good time that you might want to strike up a conversation with someone

00:31:08.040 because that you know that's generally a positive thing to have a conversation with someone and even

00:31:13.160 with a stranger and in particular you know in contrast to the relatively negative experience of

00:31:19.480 uh being on your commute by yourself that can make that that sort of better and we also um we're just

00:31:26.940 now starting to look at what would happen if you continually did this so all we know now is that it provides

00:31:32.340 sort of a brief boost in mood um and happiness um that could have downstream consequences throughout the

00:31:40.180 day but we don't really know exactly what those would be but you know it might be that if you

00:31:44.300 get it every single day that might lead to more long-term consequences so i can't i can only speculate

00:31:50.300 on those right now but um absolutely that would be sort of my recommendation okay to try to have some

00:31:55.380 more conversations with strangers particularly in these cases when you don't have much else to do

00:31:59.660 yeah like one for like i try to do and i think you talk about this in the book is like talking

00:32:04.160 to like the checkout person at the grocery store instead of just sitting there like watching them

00:32:09.960 scan the thing like actually like talking like how's your day what are you doing this week i did that

00:32:13.700 last night with the guy who's checking me out at the grocery store we had a we had a pleasant

00:32:18.560 conversation you know so i felt a little better afterwards oh great yeah there was another study

00:32:26.300 that came out where they um they had people talking to the starbucks baristas um while they were making

00:32:32.140 their coffee and so that's another time you just are standing around waiting you might as well strike up a

00:32:36.940 little conversation and yeah people felt happier afterwards i think it also reflected more

00:32:41.420 positively on the brand it actually fell more positively towards starbucks as a whole which is

00:32:46.340 you know great idea for companies to be trying to engage people sort of to build their brand image as

00:32:52.600 well interesting okay um so one of the first way we kind of mistake reading the minds of others is

00:32:59.280 um we just talked about like the dehumanization like thinking they don't have a mind or they have less

00:33:04.040 free will or they're not a social agent um another one that i thought was another mistake we make which

00:33:08.880 i thought was interesting is whenever we uh it's not dehumanization it's whenever we give something a

00:33:16.380 mind that actually doesn't have a mind right we treat it can you um give some examples of this mistake

00:33:22.620 yeah so um what we call it anthropomorphism so i'm attributing mind to some non-human agent

00:33:31.860 so um there are actually products that are designed now to be to seem sort of lifelike i mean you can

00:33:40.180 even think of children with stuffed animal giving their stuffed animal like a name so this isn't just

00:33:44.700 a stuffed bear this is mr bear um they'll talk to it and also we found that sort of cute um

00:33:52.540 cute things tend to be anthropomorphized more for reasons i can talk about later um but here's a

00:33:59.240 great product that came out on the market recently from a chicago booth alum actually it's called

00:34:04.660 clocky and this is a part of this is an alarm clock that um when it goes off in the morning not only does

00:34:13.200 it buzz it um rolls around um on your bedroom floor in random directions so you have to actually get up

00:34:21.060 catch it in order to wake up and um well listen so you know it's a good idea in terms of making

00:34:27.940 someone forcing someone to wake up absolutely but they you know as a stroke of marketing genius not

00:34:33.460 only did they sort of make it so that this is just an alarm clock that moves around they gave it like a

00:34:38.540 whole personality so they call it clocky they say they put eyes on it and stuff it looks like you know

00:34:44.580 it looks like it's live it moves in random directions and they say that in all of their

00:34:49.700 descriptions on the website they refer to it as a he like he does this he does that and this is what

00:34:55.060 he'll do when you catch him um and so people get like really attached to and there's built up like

00:35:01.580 quite a following so it's not just you know an alarm clock that moves around this is clocky this is like

00:35:06.900 my alarm clock and people you know attribute mine to it and get attached and um there are lots of

00:35:13.400 interesting consequences from this so um one thing that um nick ethley has recently done some research

00:35:19.800 on with adam wait who's a great professor at kellogg and he's also adam wait who's the one who um came

00:35:25.680 up with these names of dehumanization by commission dehumanization by omission along with nick and i

00:35:31.480 and um joy heathner they've done research lately on driverless cars so um general motors is one company

00:35:39.780 there could be other ones as well they're trying to develop these driverless cars and how do we get

00:35:44.040 people to feel comfortable about that that um because you know you can imagine that's going to be a

00:35:49.040 strange experience for people the first time how do we get people to trust their cars um and can

00:35:55.800 anthropomorphizing cars change people's attitudes towards these driverless cars

00:36:01.660 um well the short answer is uh yes yeah yeah that's interesting i mean i thought it was interesting

00:36:08.940 the research that talked about um i think it was in a car factory where when the machine wasn't

00:36:15.060 working correctly like all of a sudden it got a personality like the people talked about it like oh

00:36:20.420 he's acting up today and like it's like it like it like it had a mind of it but nothing it didn't

00:36:25.920 have a mind it wasn't like willfully trying to be um you know not work right and make things

00:36:31.540 unpleasant for people it just it wasn't working but people treated it like it was exerting some

00:36:35.520 sort of will and trying to purposely upset them yeah so um nick and adam have suggested that there

00:36:43.480 are primarily two reasons why we anthropomorphize things and one is i'm wanting to connect with them

00:36:50.880 so people who are lonely actually tend to anthropomorphize more that's also the idea that

00:36:55.380 why we anthropomorphize cute things more and then the other one is sort of what you're referring to

00:37:00.120 which is trying to understand our environment um so suddenly needing to make sense of something

00:37:05.760 and so i think we've all had this experience where like our computer breaks and we're like what are

00:37:10.540 you thinking what's going on like what what do you want from me and you start sort of talking to

00:37:14.980 your computer when it breaks as if it's alive um and getting really frustrated and angry at your

00:37:20.940 computer even though that will not help matters at all um whereas sort of the rest of the time

00:37:26.120 when everything's working as normal it's just a machine yeah and so um there's been many sort

00:37:31.620 of examples of this when something breaks down that's when you start to wonder what's going on

00:37:36.080 with it also um like i remember i said clocky moves in sort of random directions and also at random

00:37:42.980 speeds um if something is moving randomly as opposed to just moving um constantly uh in one direction

00:37:51.700 then we're more likely to think it has a mind yeah even though it does patterns in the randomness

00:37:56.700 yeah even though it doesn't right because we like to even though it's programmed to move randomly yeah

00:38:00.400 because we like to create narratives right in our mind like that's we're narrative we're storytelling

00:38:03.940 machines as well as mind reading machines like if something's happening randomly there's got to be

00:38:08.860 a reason for it even though there's not right right we see patterns from it and i guess i mean like

00:38:14.460 that sort of knowing that we do that um can i guess reduce amount of like a lot of stress in your life

00:38:20.300 you know when something goes wrong instead of getting angry about it and like anthropomorphize

00:38:23.940 you know whatever that word is i can't say it um anthropomorphize yeah anthropomorphize uh just

00:38:29.340 you know like okay it's just how it's not trying to like purposely make me upset uh it's just something

00:38:35.680 that's happening and just sort of be stoic about it um yeah i think back to that might be a strategy

00:38:44.480 that will work in some cases i i sort of so i hesitate to call anthropomorphism a mistake

00:38:50.120 in some cases i mean absolutely you're treating mind something that has no mind so in that sense

00:38:55.220 that is incorrect but um unless people actually you know literally believe that something has a mind

00:39:01.960 which um well some research shows that that may be the case but in fact you know it can lead to

00:39:07.860 positive outcomes for people it can be adaptive to think of something as being mindful and so in the

00:39:13.380 case where you know driving the driverless cars um when people trust their cars more so the way that

00:39:21.760 they did this um if they gave cars a name they gave it a voice um things like that um that makes people

00:39:30.380 anthropomorphize their cars more they trust the cars more and they're more willing to to be interested

00:39:35.740 in buying a driverless car be willing to um sit in a driverless car and they trust the car more and when

00:39:41.940 when there's an accident they're less likely to blame the car and so those kind of i mean that can

00:39:47.940 actually be beneficial for people right so yeah i mean to the extent that driverless cars would be

00:39:53.720 safer um and humans who are some humans are terrible drivers so is that why google made their like

00:40:01.640 like google released like a their concept of what their driverless car was looking it was like this

00:40:06.160 like cute little animal looking thing is that is that kind of what make it not threatening yeah

00:40:11.840 yeah in fact um some cars if you look at the grill so if you face them head on and look at them it

00:40:19.000 kind of looks like they're smiling and so people actually have a more pleasant association with

00:40:23.780 those cars um which is so car manufacturers are actually doing this purposefully to sort of because

00:40:31.160 they recognize that people have this association yeah and like the i know a lot of the police cars use

00:40:36.600 the charger which is like a really mean looking like it looks like it's angry and they must be

00:40:43.480 doing that purposely i don't know i don't know possibly possibly well it's good it's really funny

00:40:49.260 that that that could have an effect on you like that you mentioned earlier some of the research

00:40:53.300 you've done on israeli palestini relationships um this i thought was a really fascinating topic that

00:41:00.940 was brought up in the book was that oftentimes when we're told like the common bit of advice is that

00:41:05.440 if we want to you know be better mind readers we need to try to get into the shoes of the other

00:41:10.160 person right walk a mile in their shoes and you'll you'll understand where they're coming from

00:41:15.000 sounds really good in theory yeah but it's something it can backfire and uh the with the case of the

00:41:20.640 palestini-israeli relationship that's where it can really backfire can you explain like why

00:41:25.020 getting the other person's shoes uh might not be a good idea sometimes

00:41:29.200 yep um nick ethley and a professor here at booth eugene caruso and max baseman who's at harvard they

00:41:37.760 coined a term called reactive egoism which helps to describe this and essentially it's in cases in

00:41:45.440 which you're really distant from the other person you simply have a totally different set of life

00:41:50.300 experiences or even when you sort of are construing the person as being on the other side of an issue

00:41:55.440 from you so they've done this with negotiations for you negotiating against someone but also you

00:42:00.320 can really vividly imagine it with the case like palestinians and israelis where they just have a

00:42:05.200 totally different set of life experiences you know you know nothing about them at um we research

00:42:12.640 teenagers and a lot of them have had no experiences with the other side except through like checkpoints

00:42:17.280 and that kind of thing um trying to perspective take trying to sort of imagine what it would be like

00:42:23.920 to walk in their shoes is so boring and so difficult that it can actually backfire so you can imagine

00:42:31.520 if you have no clue what it would be like to walk in someone's shoes just simply saying why do you try

00:42:37.120 harder isn't going to work um and so and so what you do instead when someone asks you to really try to

00:42:45.920 imagine what that perspective would be like is you just draw upon sort of a stereotype that you have

00:42:50.240 of that side and which tend to be negative stereotypes um and you sort of build a story

00:42:57.040 that could be sort of a negative story and you imagine all these terrible things potentially that

00:43:00.720 are not really what it would be like to take the perspective of the person it's the constructed

00:43:05.120 narrative that you're making based on basically no information about that person based just on sort of

00:43:10.400 your stereotypes and so then it could actually backfire um so in the in the negotiation experiments

00:43:18.320 um when you when they ask people the perspective take the um opposing party what their first move

00:43:25.520 would be and sort of how they would approach the negotiation then it actually turned out that

00:43:29.680 once people thought about that for a while they became more aggressive so they made more aggressive

00:43:34.320 their first offers and you can imagine that they're when their perspective taking they're thinking oh

00:43:38.560 no what are all the terrible things that this person could do in the negotiation like what are all the

00:43:44.160 hard lines that they could take and so then they sort of are reacting to that imagined story which may

00:43:49.680 or may not be true and then they're becoming even more aggressive um so that's when perspective taking can

00:43:56.080 really backfire yeah so i mean how do you what's the alternative to that i mean instead of

00:44:01.920 in the case of like the israeli-palestini relationships right or in the negotiation experiment or

00:44:06.400 eric situation like instead of perspective taking like what should you do instead if you really want

00:44:11.440 to understand where the person's coming from or try to yeah so what um what nick refers to this as is

00:44:18.800 uh perspective getting so rather than attempting to imagine the other perspective of someone who

00:44:25.280 you have no clue about you actually would want to meet with them or talk with them and use language

00:44:31.440 and and actually try to get their perspective actually asking them what it is oh of course

00:44:36.560 ask them so there's all this exactly it sounds obvious when you say it um but yet you know people

00:44:43.200 don't often think to reach out to the other side or they don't have the opportunity to do so so um

00:44:47.600 the research that i'm doing with israelis and palestinians um we look at teenagers who are brought to a

00:44:52.960 summer camp in the united states it's um a program called aids of pink it's one of the largest

00:44:57.760 middle east code business programs and um and they uh basically bring the groups into contact for

00:45:05.600 three weeks in this summer camp and so the groups have a chance to finally meet the other side to

00:45:11.440 face on the other side and track even form friendships which is part of the reason why

00:45:16.640 it occurs in the u.s as opposed to being uh which is a relatively neutral territory as opposed to being

00:45:23.360 in the middle east um they can even they can even more friendships with each other and um and then

00:45:28.240 this gives them like a totally new perspective on what these people are going through um and sort of

00:45:35.760 by the end of just a three-week camp experience their attitudes have totally changed towards the

00:45:40.880 other side and furthermore we um follow up with them like nine months to a year after they go back

00:45:47.040 to their home countries and uh a lot of people maintain that to change there's certainly regression

00:45:53.920 but a lot of of the uh campers maintain that attitude change and in particular the ones who are able to

00:45:59.600 make just at least one strong connection with the other side the one close friendship or relationship

00:46:08.160 with the other side who are able to make that and especially the ones who can maintain that

00:46:12.560 relationship those are the ones who show the um prolonged maintained attitude change and they have

00:46:19.440 the most positive attitude very interesting um so yeah so just take one so the one we find okay so

00:46:27.200 you mentioned uh stereotyping is something that gets in the way of mind reading because you usually

00:46:30.800 stereotype uh often in the most negative light uh in someone so it's hard to kind of relate to

00:46:38.960 something that's completely foreign from you and a really interesting section in the book i found was

00:46:43.840 how our gender stereotypes can get in the way of men and women communicating so i mean is it uh

00:46:53.280 are we as psychologically different as books like you know men are for mars and women are for venus

00:46:58.480 say we are or are we actually more similar than we think we are um so no i do not think we are quite

00:47:08.240 as different as those books portray and uh and also just to make this clear i don't think you know

00:47:14.960 all stereotypes are negative in fact um sort of stereotyping versus sort of a general impression

00:47:20.720 formation of groups that we don't necessarily know that much about and there can be positive

00:47:24.800 stereotypes as well okay yeah um so women are caring so that could be a positive stereotype that

00:47:30.720 people might have um but uh stereotypes are really interesting and nick portrays this really really

00:47:36.960 well in his book because um there's a reason why we form stereotypes in the first place they're

00:47:42.320 cognitively very efficient um and there is some degree of accuracy in most stereotypes um the problem

00:47:50.400 is that you know they're not entirely accurate and of course with any sort of group of people

00:47:55.840 a single sort of portrait of that group will not capture every single individual within that group

00:48:02.960 um so they can backfire in interesting instances and that can be very negative um and that can lead

00:48:09.600 to lots of negative consequences but particularly with males and females there are right there are many

00:48:14.480 many stereotypes about males versus females and all these differences and and a lot of research

00:48:19.840 sort of highlights what the differences are but in fact if you um look through the data really

00:48:24.240 carefully um there are many similarities as well in fact the differences are not that large and some

00:48:30.960 of them many of them are actually due to just social norms and so um once you sort of eliminate or

00:48:36.240 change some of the norms that people think they're supposed to be um because having a stereotype can

00:48:41.600 affect how you behave because you think you're supposed to behave in a certain way um once you make it okay

00:48:47.120 for people to behave differently sometimes those a lot of those uh those differences actually disappear

00:48:53.120 entirely oh i mean so one example i guess is um one of the big sex differences people talk about is mate

00:49:00.960 preferences um so the stereotype is that um females uh prefer a mate that has resources and more so than

00:49:12.560 males who would more so prefer a mate that has is physically attractive and so um this is a

00:49:19.760 uh is just true um across many cultures um but sort of what that research completely overlooked is that

00:49:28.160 yeah on the margin those preferences are slightly reversed but in fact everyone prefers a mate that's

00:49:33.680 uh kind and intelligent and you know competent so there are lots of other preferences that people have that

00:49:40.880 both sectors share yeah and they're completely identical preferences right and so you know i guess on the

00:49:48.080 margin sort of like 10 step down yeah a female might prefer resources more than a male but you know in fact

00:49:55.200 if you look at the top three everyone wants like a kind and intelligent mate and so there's a huge like

00:50:01.200 there's a lot of similarity there and there's a little bit of difference but there's a lot of similarity and

00:50:06.160 so it gets really um i think the the coverage of that research tends to focus more on the differences

00:50:12.480 and the similarities well it's because i mean we're we like to find differences like that's one of the

00:50:17.040 things you know when things are the same or when things are going well like we ignore that but like

00:50:22.400 when things are different like that we like focus in on that and i guess that's a perfect example of

00:50:28.240 we focus on these differences that yeah they're they're there but they're not as

00:50:31.760 as important as a lot of things we have in common with each other yeah absolutely yeah and people do

00:50:39.840 this all the time they build sort of profiles of others like within cultures within races within

00:50:44.560 genders and so they focus on what the differences are but in fact the similarities might outweigh the

00:50:51.040 differences all right well speaking of men and women we're going to get into some stereotypes here but

00:50:55.280 i mean are this isn't a common thing that women are you know stereotypically they're more intuitive or

00:51:00.960 they can read the you know they're more socially adept than men are is there anything to that or is

00:51:07.200 are we about the same or if there is a difference it's marginal um yeah there actually has been some

00:51:14.240 research on that and um it does seem like there's a very small but significant effect that women do tend

00:51:21.600 to be um a little bit better in um reading minds in certain ways the thing the but um i think the reason

00:51:29.600 why that is is because of um motivation so as soon as you motivate men to focus on other people and

00:51:37.360 then they are just as good as women um it's simply that sort of and this could be because of norms

00:51:43.040 because women think they're supposed to be more you know empathetic or more caring or more focused on

00:51:47.280 others um so maybe because of some of those norms women might pay a little more attention and be a

00:51:53.680 little bit better on average but as soon as you you know as soon as you motivate men to care and notice

00:51:58.800 others then they would be just as good so that's the difference that yes it does show up on average

00:52:04.720 but i think it's really driven by people's motivations as opposed to their actual ability

00:52:08.400 interesting so you know i wouldn't say like women are better than men i would just say that they

00:52:12.000 for lots of possible reasons they seem to be a little bit more motivated to notice other people

00:52:16.000 very interesting well we we don't have much time left but i wanted to get to this i thought this is the

00:52:20.640 one of the more fascinating parts about how we're poor at reading our own minds sometimes

00:52:25.920 we think we're self-aware but we're not what prevents us from understanding ourself and why

00:52:33.600 do we commit those same sort of mind reading mistakes that we do with others with our own mind

00:52:38.880 yeah that's a really fascinating question so people think that they have strong powers of introspection

00:52:46.080 so um i you know i obviously because i have you know some access into my mind i think that you know

00:52:55.200 i can figure out every single aspect of what i'm thinking and feeling and i know exactly why that's

00:53:00.320 occurring and but in fact um people tend to be sort of outcome oriented so if i ask you right now what

00:53:08.240 what mood you're in and you said you're happy or something um you know you know what mood you're in you

00:53:14.960 have you have access to that information um or at least you can construct that very quickly in the

00:53:20.160 moment that i ask it um but then if i asked you why um you'd sort of have to try to piece that

00:53:26.720 together like you'd have to sort of go back and make some guesses like why is it that i'm feeling

00:53:30.640 happy is it because i'm having this conversation or is it because of something that happened earlier in

00:53:34.320 the day or is it there's lots of like possible reasons and um in fact you know your brain has been

00:53:43.120 sort of doing all this work without your knowledge and sort of coming up with a mood sort of online

00:53:48.160 mood in that moment but you don't really know necessarily how it got there you sort of you're

00:53:52.800 aware of like what you arrive at but you don't necessarily know exactly all the different processes

00:53:59.120 that happen to get you there and so um one sort of way that this has been shown in the research is

00:54:06.000 through creative problem solving so um researchers gave people um these uh puzzles to figure out

00:54:14.720 um and so like your remote associates test where you have these three words and you have to figure

00:54:20.480 out the fourth word that links them all together um so blank and lines and something else and the

00:54:26.640 answer is paper you know so there's one word that sort of links the other words together and this is

00:54:30.720 kind of hard for people and they have to think about it a little bit and sometimes people get stumped when

00:54:34.800 it's really really hard and um what what the researchers did is they gave people like a hint

00:54:39.920 they did something where they changed their environment like they put a stack of papers on

00:54:43.680 the desk or something and that and then suddenly people were sort of able to figure out because

00:54:49.440 what the answer was because of that hint that they were subtly given in their environment

00:54:54.400 and then they asked the participants how did you come up with the answer and so people sort of were

00:55:00.480 aware that they had this moment of epiphany like oh but they couldn't they knew that they had it but

00:55:06.160 they couldn't name the cue in the environment that triggered it necessarily they weren't clear that

00:55:12.400 there was some cue in the environment that was triggering it so people couldn't figure out what

00:55:16.160 that cue was because it sort of happened outside of their awareness but they could make up a story

00:55:20.880 so they couldn't come up with some story like oh i had this memory suddenly at the time when i was

00:55:25.040 writing and then it came to me it was paper um but in fact it was the cue the subtle cue but they

00:55:30.640 couldn't name that cue and so people when they're introspecting a lot of times what they're doing

00:55:34.800 is they're just they're doing it from sort of almost a third person perspective they're kind

00:55:38.160 of just going back through their memories or through the day like as an observer and just trying to figure

00:55:42.720 out the same way anyone else would figure out what it is that made them happy or that made them

00:55:47.280 come up with the right answer but in fact um it might not have necessarily been that it's just that

00:55:53.600 people don't have that much insight into the actual processes of their brain so sometimes we're

00:55:58.720 strangers to our our own selves yeah exactly all right and oftentimes we can't we can't predict

00:56:05.840 sort of how we might behave in different situations very well yeah that the the experiment that one

00:56:13.040 guy lapierre lapierre yeah did with the about racism can you talk about that that was like one

00:56:18.240 of the most fascinating things i've i read in the book yeah so this is a really really interesting

00:56:22.080 experiment by a stanford sociologist and um essentially he went to a neighborhood i think

00:56:28.080 in california where they um had sort of a policy at the time this was a long time ago um not to serve

00:56:34.800 groups from certain minorities so i think he went to a bunch of hotels and was asking if asian

00:56:40.960 people like chinese um businessmen could stay in the hotel and the policy was that you know they were

00:56:47.840 not allowed to do that um it was very sort of a racist and neighborhood environment and so um all

00:56:54.240 the uh hotel keepers would say if they were explicitly asked they'd say well you know no that's not our

00:57:01.680 policy um but then so they would say that but then if they were actually approached by um someone with a

00:57:10.160 chinese businessman um and the person was right there in front of them and they asked for a room

00:57:15.840 then they would say yes so they totally would change they predict that they would say no

00:57:22.640 and um that stems from their knowledge of what the norms are and what they're supposed to say

00:57:28.800 but then in reality once they're faced with the person the human standing right in front of them

00:57:35.360 pretty much no one would say no um and that's because and part of the reason for that is because

00:57:41.280 um it's hard to know how you're going to act when someone is right in front of your face and what

00:57:46.880 that experience is like it's hard to sort of create that experience in your mind um and there's and

00:57:51.760 there's a second really strong norm when someone's asking you for something is not to be rude especially

00:57:56.960 as someone like in the service business and the um hospitality business you know it's going to be

00:58:02.160 hard really really hard to turn someone down who's right in front of you and so you know on the phone

00:58:07.200 you can say uh this is not our policy we would not do that but when faced with someone right in

00:58:12.560 front of you who's you know a human just like you it's hard to say no to that so people it turned out

00:58:19.440 that most of the um hotel men would not say they'd say yes it's interesting and they didn't know that

00:58:24.240 you know they didn't have good access into what that experience would really be like they must

00:58:27.120 predict what that is like yeah i think that's this sort of that's sort of the cause of a lot of the uh

00:58:31.440 you know the monday morning quarterbacking that you see like in sports or like in politics or in

00:58:36.080 business it's like oh well if i was in that situation as someone so politician or business

00:58:42.080 person like i would have done this and it's like well you don't really know if that's what you would

00:58:47.200 have done um you think you exactly you wouldn't so so i guess right you can say anything you want

00:58:54.160 yeah but when you're actually in that moment in that experience unless you're constructing every

00:58:58.640 single aspect of that experience it's hard for you to really know how you would act it's interesting

00:59:04.080 might actually so yeah i guess this whole idea is it just have a little bit more humility um

00:59:10.320 i guess yeah like it's like it's like sort of socrates like know that you don't know

00:59:14.400 um all the time can do a lot of wonders for you well juliana i wish we could talk some more because

00:59:20.800 there's just so much uh fascinating research in this book thank you so much for your time it's been a

00:59:25.840 pleasure it's been such a pleasure thanks for uh talking with me our guest today was juliana schroeder

00:59:30.640 she's a phd candidate at the university of chicago school of business where she's specializing in

00:59:35.760 social cognition judgment and decision making and she's a research assistant for nicholas eppley

00:59:41.040 who wrote a book called mind wise go pick it up it's just a really fascinating book it's one of

00:59:45.360 those books you'll just read it and just take away a whole bunch of cool insights from it that you can

00:59:49.280 actually apply into your everyday life and see an immediate benefit so again it's mind wise you can find

00:59:54.320 that on amazon.com well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more

01:00:01.520 manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com

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The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

#77 Mindwise With Juliana Schroeder

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