The Art of Manliness - #88： Edit Your Personal Story for Lasting Change with Dr. Tim Wilson

00:00:00.000 Brent McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:19.280 So there are tons and tons of self-help books, blogs, magazines, articles that tell you that

00:00:24.660 if you do X things that you'll be happier, richer, more attractive, fitter, more awesome,

00:00:32.300 I mean, whatever. And you follow this stuff, it's kind of motivating, but then you find that

00:00:37.460 it sort of wears off. You fall off the bandwagon and you're back to where you started. And it's

00:00:44.080 frustrating, right? Well, our guest today makes the argument that all this self-help advice,

00:00:48.800 while well-intended, doesn't actually work in the long run. And what we need to do

00:00:53.420 is edit or change the stories that we tell about ourselves to ourselves. Our guest is Timothy

00:01:00.680 Wilson. He's a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, and he's the author of

00:01:04.620 the book, Redirect the Surprising New Science of Psychological Change. And in this podcast,

00:01:10.260 we're going to discuss his research that he's found about what's called story editing, which is these

00:01:15.780 stories that we have in our head about ourselves, about our circumstances, and that if we can edit

00:01:21.820 these stories, change what they are, the parts of them, that we can fundamentally change our life

00:01:27.680 trajectory, and we can become happier, healthier, et cetera, et cetera. And it's change that can be

00:01:33.980 long lasting. So really fascinating discussion. In fact, his book, Redirect, inspired one of my most,

00:01:39.900 one of my favorite posts that we wrote on the site, which is about the George Bailey effect.

00:01:43.160 So we're going to talk about how George Bailey from It's a Wonderful Life can help you become

00:01:47.720 a better, happier man. So great discussion here. Let's get on with the show.

00:01:55.720 Dr. Timothy Wilson, welcome to the show.

00:01:57.640 Great to be here, Brett.

00:01:59.180 So your book, Redirect, a fascinating book. We're going to get really, we're going to delve deep into

00:02:03.760 it. But you start off with describing what's called CSID, or critical incident stress debriefing.

00:02:11.680 And this is where therapists are sent in to the location of a traumatic event,

00:02:16.160 so they can talk to people about it immediately. So if there was a mass shooting, for example,

00:02:22.460 or they would send in therapists to talk to the students right away. And at first blush,

00:02:27.800 this sounds like a great idea. When I read about that, I was like, oh, that's a good idea.

00:02:30.800 That should help people. But you present research that suggests otherwise. Can you talk about what

00:02:37.480 the researchers have found on the effectiveness of CSID?

00:02:41.360 Sure. Well, the reason I opened the book with that example is that to illustrate that as valuable

00:02:49.660 as common sense can be, sometimes it doesn't lead to the best interventions. And it's the more

00:02:55.880 non-obvious things that work. And you're right. CISD really, it makes sense that if you get people to

00:03:03.660 purge their feelings, to instead of bottling them up, of talking about them, that that should be helpful.

00:03:11.160 But, and in fact, as you mentioned, this technique has been used across the country with first

00:03:17.120 responders and many people who have experienced trauma. Researchers didn't get around to really

00:03:23.840 testing it vigorously until relatively recently. And unfortunately, it turns out not only not to work,

00:03:31.240 but some people argue it can actually backfire, that by getting people to verbalize a traumatic

00:03:37.500 event. It actually imprints it in our memories more. And we, we find it more difficult to get

00:03:43.200 beyond an event. And in fact, you know, sometimes distraction can be a good thing. And if something

00:03:50.420 horrible has happened to us to take our mind off it, go spend time with our family or loved ones,

00:03:56.020 you know, absorb yourself in a book or a movie, but the more you dwell on it right away, the more

00:04:03.320 you're going to remember it. Interesting. So what, so besides distraction, what have they found

00:04:08.200 that's helpful to help individuals who've undergone a very traumatic event?

00:04:16.000 Well, one thing researchers are finding is that people are amazingly resilient, that, that these things

00:04:22.100 can be terrible to experience, but if we just let the natural healing process take place,

00:04:27.840 let people kind of follow their instincts as to how much to think about it versus distract themselves,

00:04:33.320 that they're going to get over it sooner, if not later. Now, if in many cases or some cases that,

00:04:41.100 that doesn't work and a few weeks go by and people find that they can't get an event out of their minds.

00:04:46.620 And that's where there are some writing exercises that psychologists have developed that turn out

00:04:53.600 to be remarkably helpful. So just taking out a piece of paper before you go to bed at night and

00:04:59.880 writing about your deepest thoughts and feelings about this, the thing that's troubling you,

00:05:05.860 and doing that, say, three or four nights in a row is painful, but it can help people move beyond

00:05:12.780 these events by getting them to restructure it and think about it in a way that gives it some meaning

00:05:18.940 and allows them to, to move on. So why is it that, uh, writing as opposed to talking about it right away

00:05:25.800 is more beneficial? I mean, what's the difference there? Well, I think a real key is the timing that,

00:05:31.760 uh, these writing exercises are typically done after a few weeks, um, that have gone by so that

00:05:38.520 people have had, um, time to, uh, their natural resilience processes have kicked in perhaps,

00:05:45.280 and, um, the event isn't quite as, as vivid in their minds. Um, so there's less risk that,

00:05:53.500 that this, that writing about it, um, or talking about it will imprint it in their memories.

00:05:58.640 I think gaining some perspective, I mean, you know, I mean, think of the example of all of us

00:06:03.580 have probably undergone a romantic breakup, uh, where someone has, has, uh, told us, look,

00:06:09.080 uh, this isn't working. And, you know, is it best to sort of wow on your feelings right away and

00:06:14.640 write about it, or, you know, maybe go spend time with your friends, let some time go by and,

00:06:19.480 and then revisit it. And it's getting that perspective over time, which, which can really be helpful.

00:06:24.860 Okay. So you start off with talking about the, the CSID as a way to introduce, uh, story editing.

00:06:32.720 Uh, can you explain what story editing is? This is a, it's a relatively, I guess, not new idea in

00:06:38.940 psychology or social psychology, but it's gaining more and more, um, I guess, attention. Uh, so what

00:06:45.260 is story editing and how does it affect the way we think about the world and think about ourselves?

00:06:50.220 Sure. Well, um, it's a metaphor that we all have stories that we tell ourselves about, um, who we

00:06:57.600 are and what's happening to us in life. And it does, um, uh, capitalize on an age old phenomenon

00:07:05.100 and philosophy that the world is not something objective that we look at like a movie. Rather,

00:07:11.360 we are always interpreting and, and making sense of the world around us and weaving that into some

00:07:18.180 sort of narrative about, uh, what's happening to us and who we are and so on. And often these stories

00:07:25.700 or narratives are quite healthy and, and, uh, uh, help us, um, deal with traumatic events. Um, we have

00:07:33.100 a lot of self-confidence, um, and strength, but sometimes these stories go wrong and, and people end up

00:07:40.040 with pessimistic views of themselves or, uh, interpretations that, that lead to rumination and,

00:07:47.120 and negative feelings. And, and so this, this metaphor of story editing is if we can somehow,

00:07:52.980 uh, get inside people's heads and just get them to redirect that story into a healthier direction

00:08:00.300 that can have big benefits down the road. Okay. So you, uh, highlight, uh, research that was done with,

00:08:06.280 uh, college students on the power of story editing about their grades. Um, can you briefly describe

00:08:14.240 that research? Sure. Well, this is kind of how I got interested many years ago in, in this whole area.

00:08:19.760 And it's a study I did, uh, with college students, as you said, who were, uh, in their first year and

00:08:25.420 struggling and, and not performing, um, as well as they, um, they thought they, they should be or could

00:08:31.820 be. And if you think about that, um, there's lots of ways we might try to help such a student who

00:08:36.820 is struggling. We could, um, maybe give them a study skills, uh, intervention, or maybe give them some

00:08:43.620 medication to calm them down. Um, but we decided to intervene at this level of the story. And,

00:08:50.080 and our hunch was that there's a kind of, uh, um, vicious cycle of thinking that people can get in

00:08:56.120 where, uh, they're questioning whether they have what it takes to do well in college. And that leads

00:09:02.120 to some worry and anxiety. And that makes it even harder to study and to actually do well. And so the

00:09:08.800 story in this case is maybe I don't fit in here. Maybe I don't have what it takes,

00:09:13.780 which leads to this vicious cycle of it spirals downward. So we did a really simple intervention

00:09:20.640 where we brought students in. Uh, we didn't tell them that the goal was to, uh, help them. We just

00:09:26.580 told them they were taking part in a survey. And as part of this survey, we gave them some information

00:09:32.820 that challenged this view that they couldn't do it and tried to reinforce the view that lots of

00:09:38.780 people struggle in the first year. And it's not a sign that they are failures. It's a sign that

00:09:44.320 college is a time of adjustment and they need to try a little harder. We gave them some statistics

00:09:50.340 showing that grades often improve after the first year and showed them some videotapes of older

00:09:55.740 students who reinforced this message said, yeah, you know, it was tough my first semester, but,

00:10:00.240 um, it got better over time. So, you know, pretty simple. This took about a half an hour and

00:10:06.540 where they learned this message. And, um, we had a control group of students who were randomly

00:10:12.500 assigned to not get this message. And then we followed the two groups, those who got the story

00:10:17.400 editing, uh, intervention and those who didn't. And, um, I have to say even we were surprised

00:10:23.300 that at the effects that this little half hour message seemed to redirect people's stories

00:10:29.660 in ways that led to better grades over the next year. And they, in fact, were even more likely to

00:10:35.900 stay in college. Our control group, um, a fairly significant portion of them dropped down, but in

00:10:41.740 this intervention group, um, many fewer did. Interesting. So how can someone apply story

00:10:48.660 editing to their own life? Cause there in the research, you, you know, unnoticed to them, they were

00:10:52.600 getting this message that was kind of helping them redirect, uh, their stories about themselves. But

00:10:57.660 what, are there some methods that people can use to implement story editing in their own life?

00:11:04.380 Well, it's a really good question, Brett, cause I think, you know, sometimes it does take a third

00:11:08.460 party to do this, that we can get caught in cycles of rumination where it's just hard to look at our

00:11:13.980 own circumstances objectively. And sometimes it does take, um, you know, someone else to, to, uh,

00:11:20.160 kind of nudge our story in a, in a better direction, but there are some things we can do. And,

00:11:24.900 and, uh, that writing exercise I mentioned, uh, earlier where people can, um, just on their own

00:11:30.700 decide to write about traumatic events. Um, there have been a number of those writing exercises that

00:11:36.980 have been developed. One that, um, has gotten some recent attention is to write about some negative

00:11:43.640 event from a third person perspective, um, as if you were a fly on the wall and to try to explain

00:11:50.020 why this thing happened to you. So rather than re-immersing yourself in something negative,

00:11:55.980 uh, say you had a problem at work where you had a fight with your boss or something,

00:11:59.860 rather than kind of reliving those feelings, imagine that you're a fly on the wall looking

00:12:05.060 at you and your boss interacting with a particular goal of trying to explain it better than you have

00:12:11.800 before. And often, you know, it sounds simple, but that little writing exercise of becoming more

00:12:16.780 objective. Often these people to revise their thinking about it, to attach new meaning and

00:12:22.700 in ways that actually helps them move on. And you also mentioned, I guess, behave to feel like,

00:12:29.240 I guess, cognitive dissonance, reverse cognitive dissonance, where if you want to feel like you're

00:12:33.420 a run, like a runner person, like just start running. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a really important

00:12:38.680 one too. And I refer to it as the do good, be good principle. And, you know, it's a real mantra

00:12:44.580 of social psychology that if we want to change ourselves, often the first step is to change our

00:12:50.800 behavior. So if we want to view ourselves as more caring, helpful people, then do some volunteer

00:12:58.380 work. If a better family person, then, uh, do the dishes more in your house or, or, uh, spend more

00:13:04.800 time with your kids. Because, you know, what happens is once our behavior changes, the story often

00:13:10.260 follows after that. And it reinforces this new self identity of, yes, I am a helpful person because

00:13:17.220 look what I'm doing. Interesting. So, um, what do you tell to the person who like, they listen to this,

00:13:23.240 like they sound, Oh, this is great. I'm, I'm really pessimistic. I'm sort of a curmudgeon. I'm, um,

00:13:28.280 not very resilient and I want to change my narrative about themselves. I want to change my narrative

00:13:32.920 about myself. Uh, I mean, I can see this, there'd be points of frustration where, you know, you try

00:13:39.800 doing the story editing, but change doesn't happen all the way and you get frustrated like, Oh, this

00:13:43.640 doesn't work. And you, you begin that vicious cycle of thinking that I can't change my story. Um,

00:13:50.140 is there, is there any hope for the curmudgeon that wants to change themselves with, with story

00:13:54.800 editing? Yeah. Well, I, you know, I, I will put in a plug for, uh, psychotherapy, but I do think

00:14:01.020 your problems really get out of hands that, you know, one way I think of psychotherapy as a bigger

00:14:05.840 dose of story editing where you have someone else to help you with it. And, and, you know,

00:14:09.940 there's a lot of good evidence that psychotherapy works for a lot of problems. So, so if your

00:14:14.340 curmudgeon, you know, was really getting seriously depressed, for example, um, seek some help. But

00:14:19.480 short of that, um, you know, I, I think there's, there's always some room to maneuver. I don't mean to

00:14:26.200 suggest that these techniques will change us overnight from a curmudgeon to,

00:14:30.440 uh, the most optimistic person in the world. Um, but through these writing exercises and,

00:14:37.060 and changing our behavior piece by piece, um, I think over time it can help at least some.

00:14:43.640 Okay. So you had a one section in your book that it actually inspired a blog post on our site,

00:14:49.440 uh, about the George Bailey effect. Uh, and it's sort of, I guess, a technique that people can use to

00:14:55.740 edit their story to be happier. Um, can you talk about the George Bailey effect and how people can

00:15:02.440 implement it in their own life? Sure. Well, this was inspired by some research in the positive

00:15:07.960 psychology movement, which suggests to people that they keep gratitude journals. Uh, so each night,

00:15:14.440 maybe, um, spend a little time writing about things in your life that you're thankful for.

00:15:19.260 And I've tried that myself and, you know, it's, it's, it's fine. Um, but I, I find that, um,

00:15:27.200 yeah, we want, we've already thought a lot about those things and not that we've taken them for

00:15:31.720 granted, but we, we, um, we've kind of accepted that these things are in our life and, um, just

00:15:37.840 reminding us, I'm not sure always delivers that much of a bang. So we, in some research, tried a, uh,

00:15:45.040 slightly different approach where instead of asking people what they were thankful for,

00:15:50.520 we said, imagine something really good in your life, like your relationship, say with a spouse

00:15:55.280 or partner, and imagine that it never happened. Um, really go into some detail about, uh, why you

00:16:02.040 might not have ever met your partner or once you met him or her, you didn't start a relationship.

00:16:07.600 And the George Bailey, uh, name comes from the movie. It's a wonderful life where many people know that,

00:16:13.460 that Jimmy Stewart had this, uh, angel come and show him what life would have been like had he not

00:16:19.200 lived. And in a way that's what people do in this writing exercise. They, they imagine what their life

00:16:24.260 would be like if, uh, this good thing had not happened to them. And we found in, in some studies

00:16:29.800 that that actually was better than gratitude journals at improving people's mood and making them

00:16:35.460 appreciate things, um, that they have. Interesting. It sounds very similar to, um, some stoic philosophy

00:16:43.200 of, you know, sort of subtracting the good and focusing on the negative to make you happier

00:16:49.040 in a weird paradoxical way. Yeah, no, I think, uh, that's a good comparison.

00:16:54.000 Okay. Um, so moving beyond to helping just ourselves, uh, redirect our stories. I know a lot of our

00:17:01.260 listeners are parents, um, or dads, what can we do to help our children develop positive self

00:17:07.600 narratives that make them resilient and effective in the world? Um, is there any research out there

00:17:13.580 that's talks about what, what, what we can do to help internalize desired values, uh, in our kids?

00:17:21.060 Sure. Well, you know, I do have a chapter in the books, uh, specifically on parenting. And I do think

00:17:26.540 there are some lessons here that, you know, one way of describing what our job is as a parent is to help

00:17:32.040 our kids develop good, healthy stories that where they make themselves as, uh, kids who are autonomous

00:17:40.540 and, and, um, have a purpose and, and are effective. And, um, the danger with, with overdoing some

00:17:48.800 parenting techniques is that we're too controlling and it prevents our kids from acquiring that, that

00:17:54.600 identity as someone who is, is autonomous in themselves. So for example, um, I think all parents, I know I've

00:18:03.380 certainly been there when my kids were younger. It's, it's, uh, we all use rewards and punishments of some

00:18:08.780 form or another, like time out or something. And, um, sometimes we need to, our kids are doing something

00:18:14.460 dangerous or, or misbehaving, but the real key is to do it with a light hand that if we're, if we go overboard,

00:18:21.580 either with rewards or punishment, it conveys the view to our kids that they're doing something to

00:18:27.760 satisfy us or to avoid punishment. And they don't internalize this idea that this is something they

00:18:34.540 should value in and of themselves. So it's tricky, but, but the goal is to use the smallest amount of

00:18:41.620 reward you can to induce your child to behave the way you want them to. And if you have to use

00:18:47.500 punishment, um, rewards tend to work better than punishment, but if you have to, um, do it with a

00:18:53.120 very light hand so that your child doesn't end up thinking, um, I'm doing this just to avoid the wrath

00:18:59.800 of dad. Uh, and that helps a child internalize the values that you, you want them to. Excellent. And I

00:19:07.300 imagine just displaying positive story editing in your own life would be a good, like it rubs off on them,

00:19:15.220 right? If you react to a setback and just sort of remunerate about it, your kids will probably pick

00:19:20.260 up on that. I imagine. They would. And it does remind me too, that, you know, kids are excellent

00:19:25.500 observers of adults and, and, uh, and imitating and learning just from watching. And this suggests

00:19:32.700 that we need to be really good role models for our kids, that if we want them to grow up to be

00:19:38.060 helpful people, we need to exhibit helpfulness ourselves and, and so on that they, they, um, uh,

00:19:44.800 you know, they can really, um, observe us very, very acutely. Okay. So one chapter that was really

00:19:51.740 fascinating and I think it really showcases the power of story editing is in the way it can help

00:19:57.460 underachieving, um, children in school, uh, close the achievement gap. Can you talk about the research

00:20:03.360 that's been done with that on how just redirecting these students' stories about themselves, um, can

00:20:08.760 help them excel in school? Sure. Well, there's some really exciting research going on in this area.

00:20:14.580 And, you know, as everyone knows, there are problems that seem so hard to fix. They're,

00:20:19.760 they're rooted in decades of, of poverty and so on. And, and, and, uh, has been reduced a little

00:20:28.540 bit, um, over the past few decades, but it still persists at, uh, alarming rates where minority

00:20:35.080 kids are not doing as well in school. And so some social psychologists, um, got the idea to,

00:20:41.440 well, maybe this is a story problem in a sense that the kids, minority kids, um, they're in school

00:20:49.100 and they work, but they quickly learn that this is a place where their identity is at risk, that

00:20:53.960 there's a stereotype that they're not going to do as well. And that puts pressure on them. If they're

00:20:58.640 taking a test, not only do they have to worry about doing well for their own sake, they have to worry

00:21:03.760 about confirming a stereotype that they're not going to do well. And this can be debilitating.

00:21:08.740 So some researchers went into, um, a middle school and they randomly assigned some kids,

00:21:16.280 um, black and whites, to do a writing exercise where they just, um, picked a value other than

00:21:22.880 academics that was really important to them and write about why it was important. So kids, um,

00:21:28.760 they had a list they could choose from and they were things like their family, their religion,

00:21:33.060 uh, a sport, a hobby. And so the kids, um, did this. And as it turns out, this little, what's called a

00:21:41.560 self-affirmation exercise had no effect on the white kids because presumably they were already felt their

00:21:48.720 identity was safe in school. But for the black kids, um, it helped them reduce the threat by reminding 0.88

00:21:55.720 them that they were valuable kids who, who had, um, uh, relationships and hobbies and things that

00:22:01.940 they valued. It kind of lowered the heat a little bit about their identity at school. And ironically,

00:22:07.580 that made them actually do better, that there was less concern that all their eggs were in this one

00:22:12.200 basket in a sense. And the kids who got this, this little writing intervention, um, it, it basically

00:22:18.760 closed the achievement gap by 40% in this one school. Fascinating. I think there was similar

00:22:24.480 research done on that. Just the, the power of stereotype in a child's life is where even if

00:22:29.760 the, if you don't have the child identify their race or gender, they actually perform better.

00:22:36.260 Yes. Yes. That's fascinating that, that just having a kid check the box, even college students

00:22:41.820 can just remind them of that what's called stereotype threat and, uh, and make them do worse.

00:22:47.860 Yeah. Okay. So, um, what can, I always try to end these podcasts with, uh, just some like one thing

00:22:54.540 that people like some actionable things that people can do. And I know sort story editing is

00:22:58.940 sort of a lifelong thing you need to implement, but what's one thing that a person could start

00:23:03.340 doing today to implement story editing and redirect how they think about themselves today?

00:23:09.280 Well, I guess what I say, Brad, is just remind ourselves that change is possible, that, that we're

00:23:15.280 not fixed beings that, that, um, uh, are stuck in one way that we have to be stuck in forever.

00:23:21.380 That just by adopting this metaphor of the story, um, I think it empowers us to, uh, to change it.

00:23:28.120 And, um, I'm not suggesting it's easy and that every problem will magically disappear, but I think

00:23:34.980 just, um, beginning to view whatever's troubling us as well, it's a story. And, you know, at one extreme,

00:23:41.400 if I really need help, I can get psychotherapy, but short of that, there's a lot of little things

00:23:45.800 I can do of changing my behavior or these writing exercises that can send me on the road to, uh,

00:23:52.680 a better story. Excellent. So where can people go to find out more about your work? And you're also

00:23:57.160 a musician, but I gathered from your website. Yes and no. I, uh, I do on my website have, uh, links to

00:24:06.400 some other people with the name Tim Wilson. Oh, is that what that is? Okay. I, uh, both of whom

00:24:11.440 are musicians. Now I do play the guitar, but not in any way that people in public would want to hear

00:24:16.560 me. Let me put it that way. But, uh, no, I amuse myself. I sometimes get calls for the other Tim

00:24:22.700 Wilson and say, Hey, can you show up at this bar and play? And, uh, maybe sometime I'll do it,

00:24:28.800 but we'll see. Oh, but, but to answer your question, um, I do have this book redirect,

00:24:33.560 which is coming out in paperback in the next couple of months, but is available now on in,

00:24:38.380 in hardback. And, uh, there's a Facebook page for it where I post things occasionally that are in the

00:24:44.260 news that people can like as well. Fantastic. Well, Tim Wilson, thank you so much for your time.

00:24:49.300 It's been a pleasure. It's been a lot of fun for me too. Thanks, Brad. Thank you. Our guest today

00:24:53.220 was Timothy Wilson. He is the author of the book redirect the surprising new science of psychological

00:24:57.920 change. And you can find that on amazon.com. Well, that wraps up another edition of the art

00:25:04.700 of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice. Make sure to check out the art of manliness

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00:25:35.920 do whatever you want. So until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

The Art of Manliness - November 06, 2014

#88： Edit Your Personal Story for Lasting Change with Dr. Tim Wilson

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