The Art of Manliness - The Surprising Science Behind Building Stronger Relationships

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast we've all heard

00:00:11.340 by now just how important strong relationships are to our health and well-being but a lot of

00:00:15.460 common advice and conventional wisdom out there about how to build strong relationships doesn't

00:00:19.700 end up taking us closer to that goal my guest today eric barker has spent years sorting through

00:00:24.180 what really builds better friendships reignites love and helps people get closer to others and

00:00:28.380 he shares these research-backed insights in his new book plays well with others the surprising

00:00:32.880 science behind why everything you know about relationships is mostly wrong eric shares what

00:00:37.560 he's learned today on the show beginning with why we're good at figuring out someone's personality

00:00:40.880 from the moment we meet them but bad at reading their thoughts and feelings and how to get better

00:00:44.820 at the latter by making other people more readable as well as how to make a better first impression

00:00:49.160 yourself we then turn to what makes friendship a unique relationship that makes us uniquely happy

00:00:53.040 and the two costly signals that most develop friendship we also get into why friends we feel

00:00:57.620 ambivalent about are actually worse for us than outright enemies we spend the last part of our

00:01:01.820 conversation on how the modern age is both the worst and the best time for marriage and how the key

00:01:06.260 to ensuring that yours is one of the happiest in history is maintaining positive sentiment override

00:01:11.040 after the show's over check out our show notes at awim.is slash relationships

00:01:14.900 all right eric barker welcome back to the show it's great to be here man so we had you on back in

00:01:29.640 2017 to talk about your book barking up the wrong tree the surprising science behind why everything you

00:01:36.320 know about success is mostly wrong you got a new book this is plays well with others the surprising

00:01:42.980 science behind why everything you know about relationships is mostly wrong so you're what

00:01:49.180 you've been doing for for a long time over a decade is writing articles on your blog looking at these sort

00:01:55.440 of these common ideas that we have about success relationships work and then digging into the research

00:02:02.620 to show that well these common ideas that we have might not be true and here's some counterintuitive

00:02:08.400 insights about it so what you've done in this book you've taken some like relationship tropes that

00:02:13.760 we've heard over the years i mean it's just sort of baked into the to our our collective wisdom and

00:02:20.480 try to investigate well are these things really true i mean the first one you look at is you can't judge

00:02:26.520 a book by its cover and this is based you know basically the idea is that you can't judge your first

00:02:31.400 impressions of people you have to give them a really thorough you know look at and chance to really get to

00:02:36.780 know them so let's take a look at the research on whether or not that's true you highlight the fbi spent

00:02:42.440 decades and like millions and millions of dollars trying to figure out whether they can judge a book by

00:02:48.160 its cover whether they can profile people correctly has this investment paid off no serial killer profiling

00:02:55.220 is basically pseudoscience if you give chemistry graduate students a chance to write profiles they'll write

00:03:00.480 ones that seem just as valid as ones by professional profilers the uk looked at all of its profiling and

00:03:08.220 said how often was this useful and the answer was 2.7 percent of the time and the reason an american is

00:03:14.200 citing british statistics is because the fbi doesn't release that data so basically you know again and

00:03:20.540 again it's been shown that just profiling doesn't really work and you know we it's it's basically no

00:03:26.340 different than astrology and this is a problem that you know is kind of writ large is just our

00:03:32.280 ability to read others whether it be profiling or just you know having a conversation with your spouse

00:03:37.380 is very tricky and we the problem is that we think we're really good at it our confidence levels are

00:03:43.740 way higher than our accuracy numbers nicholas epley does research at university of chicago and he found

00:03:49.200 that 20 we can only accurately read the thoughts and feelings of strangers 20 percent of the time

00:03:54.400 with friends we hit 30 percent and with spouses we hit 35 percent so whatever you think is on your

00:03:59.760 spouse's mind two-thirds of the time you're wrong and the truth is it's we seem to have a pretty low

00:04:05.040 ceiling for getting better at this you know there are things you know like motivation that can help us

00:04:11.160 get better but what i found by looking at the research was what actually helps us really read the

00:04:17.740 thoughts and feelings of others others better is not trying to improve our reading ability but to focus

00:04:23.180 on making the other person more readable okay i want to talk about how we can do that but i want

00:04:27.700 to reiterate this idea that we're not very good at reading people's feelings or thoughts i mean this is

00:04:33.160 like the source of a lot of just contention in any relationship like you you think someone's thinking

00:04:38.380 this thing and you get upset about the thing you think they're thinking about and it's probably

00:04:42.400 they're probably not even thinking that no and this is this is huge it causes a lot of conflicts

00:04:48.780 especially i get into later in the book i get into you know the issue of of marriage and it can become

00:04:54.420 really difficult when we get overconfident about our ability to to read our partner especially in a

00:05:00.740 long-term relationship as it goes on because we start making assumptions and once we start making

00:05:06.600 assumptions we're not having a conversation with our partner anymore we're having a conversation with

00:05:10.760 ourselves and it's really not that hard for that internal conversation to turn negative where we start

00:05:16.560 making assumptions about our partner's motives what they did why they did and this is one of the

00:05:22.080 things that you know that that accelerates kind of the entropy you know in a in a marriage or in a

00:05:27.200 long-term relationship is not communicating as much not asking people what's on their mind but making

00:05:32.880 assumptions okay so we're not good at thought reading the body language thing what does the research

00:05:36.920 say about you know you can read someone's body language to see if they're sad upset interested in you

00:05:42.100 what's going on there like unconsciously we we certainly get some information from that but when

00:05:47.860 we consciously try to read body language you know it's really not that helpful or effective is what

00:05:53.880 the research shows a lot of people love you know body language hey i'm a big fan of shrillock homes

00:05:58.140 but uh truth is it's really not because the in the end we don't know if the person's shivering

00:06:03.820 because they're nervous or they're shivering because they're cold you know so this is even worse with

00:06:08.180 strangers because we don't have a baseline with strangers we don't know that oh they're tapping

00:06:13.240 their fingers we don't know if that's because they're bored or if that's a nervous habit that

00:06:17.380 they always do so it's it's trying to consciously read body language there's a reason why there's

00:06:22.540 never been a rosetta stone for for translating you know body language because consistently the research

00:06:28.580 shows that it's it's just not effective if we want to find something that's going to give us a

00:06:33.700 better read on someone we're actually much better off focusing on the voice because when we can hear

00:06:39.640 someone but we can't see them empathic accuracy only drops off about four percent when we can see

00:06:45.560 someone but we can't hear them empathic accuracy drops off 54 percent so we actually get a lot more

00:06:51.360 valuable information about what a person's thinking and feeling from their voice than we do from looking

00:06:56.260 at their body that's interesting so something you point out though so we're not very good at mind

00:07:00.320 reading we're not very good at reading body language fbi is not they're terrible at profiling

00:07:06.000 yet at the same time like our first impressions of people are surprisingly more accurate than we

00:07:13.680 think they'd be what's going on there yeah it's really interesting first impressions are kind of a

00:07:19.060 double-edged sword because like you said we are surprisingly good generally about the 70 accuracy level

00:07:24.700 in terms of sizing somebody up you know we can generally look at somebody like some of the

00:07:29.900 fundamental personality traits for instance like you know how a person dresses how well groomed they

00:07:34.740 are is usually very indicative of conscientiousness and on a conscious or subconscious level we we kind

00:07:40.400 of we kind of get that and there's a lot of research in psychology on what's called thin slicing

00:07:44.960 which is that if i see someone i can't hear it but i watch a video of say a teacher in a classroom

00:07:50.760 just by watching that for a couple minutes people can usually predict just how competent that person

00:07:56.780 is at their job but that's the thing is sizing people up in this sort of overall way those

00:08:03.440 fundamental personality traits way like i said 70 we're pretty good at that but that's different

00:08:09.820 than trying to figure out what's on a person's mind in the moment what their intentions are what

00:08:15.560 they're what they're really feeling behind their eyes so there is that kind of distinction there

00:08:21.520 but what's really critical with first impressions is like i said it's a double-edged sword in the

00:08:26.840 sense that yeah we we are way above chance in terms of reading someone accurately in terms of

00:08:33.020 getting a first impression on them overall however the other side of the sword is those first impressions

00:08:40.080 tend to stick and if we're wrong we it's really hard for us to dislodge those inaccurate perceptions

00:08:47.640 of that person and and that's where it's really tricky okay so there's two things we could talk

00:08:52.980 about here one hand okay first impressions are you know 70 accuracy rate to me i think well i should

00:08:58.920 be doing i should think more about my first impression because okay it's probably going to

00:09:03.180 be accurate and it's going to be stuck in that person's head for a long time so i should probably

00:09:06.800 do some things to manage that did you come across any research on whether it's possible to

00:09:11.440 manage your first impression absolutely the thing here is that on one hand you know we we want to

00:09:18.580 make a good first impression on the other hand you don't want to give an oscar-worthy method acting

00:09:25.560 performance all the time and and from an ethics standpoint you don't want to be insincere so the

00:09:30.700 best attitude to take is to not try and be someone you're not but to find the version of you that

00:09:39.060 might fit best here because we all know that our personalities vary in fact research shows our

00:09:44.200 personalities can vary widely uh depending on context we're all someone different with our

00:09:49.740 spouse versus our boss versus our kids versus strangers and to actually sit there for a second

00:09:56.180 and just think about you know of of the various me's which is the me that would be best for me to to

00:10:02.760 present here the warm supportive person that i am with my kids the professional you know hard-headed

00:10:08.680 organized person at work so you can present a positive impression without being insincere and

00:10:14.840 in a very natural organic way by being the different me that is that is relevant here

00:10:19.760 gotcha all right let's talk about our first impressions of others so generally we can kind

00:10:24.380 of see okay someone's conscientious whether they're laid back whether they might be neurotic or open i

00:10:29.420 mean you kind of get that but that doesn't give you the full picture of that person

00:10:31.980 so you mentioned earlier that if we really want to get behind the person like what they're

00:10:37.660 actually thinking and feeling kind of see who they really are we need to get better instead of that

00:10:42.840 you know body language reading getting that person to open up more to us so we can find out more about

00:10:48.180 them what does the research say about that how what are some effective ways to do that

00:10:51.980 the first critical thing to think about is you're not going to be Sherlock Holmes we are not going to be

00:10:57.960 able to passively just read people at a distance the issue is like i said our skills kind of have a very

00:11:03.740 low ceiling now we can sharpen them a bit by getting more motivated research shows that on

00:11:09.320 first dates people are more accurate people readers and the reason there is there's stakes

00:11:14.240 there's something to be won there's something to be lost you know all of a sudden it's it's game day

00:11:19.200 so your brain our brains are generally cost efficient which i consider a euphemism for lazy

00:11:24.660 so our our brains aren't going to kick into gear if we don't feel like there's stakes here so you know

00:11:31.400 get motivated think about what you have to gain or lose but beyond that absolutely you can't just

00:11:36.280 passively read people you need to engage with them and what we need to think about there is not how

00:11:41.920 we can sharpen our skills but how we can make the other person more readable and that means thinking

00:11:47.020 more first about context you know if there's somebody you're trying to get to know or somebody

00:11:51.220 you're trying to get a beat on you know meeting over coffee you know there's just not a lot of

00:11:56.280 stimuli in that environment versus if i was to play basketball with that person you know i would see

00:12:01.600 do they cooperate do they cheat you know how do they make decisions on the fly i'd get a lot more

00:12:06.760 information because of what is affecting them in the environment you know the the other thing to think

00:12:11.800 about is other people you know if you were only dealing with someone in the presence of their boss

00:12:15.760 would you really think you were seeing you know the whole them no and the other thing that's

00:12:20.840 really critical is is we need to stop playing it quite as safe with conversation topics you want

00:12:26.520 to be a little bit more provocative a little bit more controversial because emotional reactions

00:12:31.400 research shows are typically more honest you know people don't usually fake anger you know to get

00:12:37.780 something a little bit more controversial to see somebody when they're reactive we're going to get a

00:12:42.300 better read on what is important to this person what they're thinking about how they feel what they

00:12:46.560 value so poking prodding a little bit is going to get us more honest reactions than talking about the

00:12:52.180 weather no and you so there are some like lie detecting things we can do you're not actually

00:12:57.140 detecting the lie you're just trying to you have to throw people off i like how you said you need to

00:13:01.860 become a a friendly journalist right so like instead you're gonna you're gonna kind of interrogate this

00:13:06.920 person you're gonna be barbara walters but you know a little but a little more friendly so i like

00:13:13.820 you know one of the tips you give is you know ask unanticipated questions because people who

00:13:18.260 who lie are kind of like those social chameleons they know the social scripts and they're just gonna

00:13:23.120 if you just ask them the typical question they're gonna know the answer to give but if you ask them

00:13:28.060 like something that a screwball question they weren't expecting they're gonna get well and it's

00:13:32.360 gonna throw them off i mean exactly that's the critical thing here is that all the information we

00:13:37.400 generally get on tv and stuff is that stress is is going to indicate lies and that's never been shown

00:13:42.440 to be true and body language has never shown to into to be valuable in terms of that what does work

00:13:48.400 is cognitive load basically we want to make them think hard in fact telling police officers to to think

00:13:56.140 of the question when someone's talking to them instead of asking themselves the question is this

00:14:01.560 person lying to switch to the question does this person have to think hard that notable that question

00:14:07.420 notably increase police officers ability to detect lies and like you said unanticipated questions a

00:14:14.720 study of airport screeners showed that they could only uh accurately detect lies in general like they

00:14:20.000 only caught like six percent of lying passengers when they use unanticipated question that jumped to

00:14:24.260 like 66 percent because the critical thing here is a liar can't be prepared for every eventuality

00:14:30.080 everything you could ask so when you ask stuff that's unanticipated all of a sudden they're gonna have to

00:14:35.380 think you know it's like it's like when your computer slows down when it's chewing on a hard

00:14:39.560 problem and that you know again there's no big neon sign above their head that's gonna say lie

00:14:45.000 but you're going to see a slowdown you're gonna see a wonkiness the example i use in the book is

00:14:50.080 if you were a bartender and you you saw an underage person come in if you ask them how old are you

00:14:56.000 they're gonna say 21 but if you ask them what year were you born they're probably gonna have to do math

00:15:02.080 they probably didn't think about that now what year were you born is an exceedingly easy question

00:15:06.460 for an honest person to answer but the liar is uh is gonna have to do math and that's gonna be very

00:15:12.320 visible so unanticipated questions can be really powerful in terms of just making lies easier to

00:15:19.180 detect okay so the answer to can you judge a book by its cover is it maybe the answer to can you judge a

00:15:27.740 book by its cover in general is that we all judge people immediately unconsciously we make evaluations

00:15:34.700 of people when we first meet them in milliseconds you know and we are always going to start making

00:15:40.400 assumptions even with people we know about our friend's spouse about what they're thinking and

00:15:46.060 the key here isn't don't judge a book by its cover because we're going to we always do the issue is

00:15:51.700 we want to revise those judgments we want to we want we get the initial judgment and we don't want

00:15:57.500 to stop there and slam the gavel down and make a decision about this person we want to keep

00:16:02.120 hypothesis testing we want to keep listening and we want to keep revising those judgments so that

00:16:07.520 they can be better and more accurate okay so the next relationship trope you look at is a friend in

00:16:12.940 need is a friend indeed and so use this section to explore friendship and you start off the section

00:16:19.860 kind of asking the question like why do we even have friends in the first place because you point out

00:16:23.660 that you know they don't make much sense from an evolutionary perspective right you know friends

00:16:28.240 usually aren't your family members so there's no advantage to us to invest in them right because it's

00:16:35.300 not they're not going to help us propagate the species or propagate our family so what does your

00:16:41.060 research found like why why have friends in the first place no it's like you're absolutely right from

00:16:45.700 evolutionary point of view i mean friends now now people can help you collect resources to help your

00:16:51.460 biological kin but that would just be transactional relationships that wouldn't be the deep warm loving

00:16:56.920 friendships that we all we all want and so this and this was actually darwin called this his white

00:17:02.800 whale darwin felt like if he couldn't solve this problem then maybe his theory of natural selection

00:17:08.500 wasn't true he was worried about it and the crazy thing was when you read darwin's biography

00:17:14.000 the thing he was most happy and proud about that he thought was more important in his life than

00:17:18.480 anything other was his relationship to to his friend to his friend henslow so underneath it all

00:17:24.560 you know it really is important to us and it matters and what it comes down to believe it or not because

00:17:29.660 the truth is for me as a writer you know this this chapter was hard because there's not a lot of

00:17:35.660 research on friendship friendship doesn't get the respect despite the fact that friends you know

00:17:39.760 research shows make us happier than any other relationship that the word friend is used more

00:17:44.020 than any other relational term in the english language including mother and father you know

00:17:48.200 friendship gets the short end of the stick often and you know to really define it i was initially

00:17:53.640 struggling i was reading this stuff and i'm trying to find a good answer and i ended up going back to

00:17:57.860 aristotle and aristotle 2 000 years ago said that a friend is another self which is really warm and you

00:18:05.360 know nice but just it just it it might be nice for a hallmark card but it doesn't sound you know true

00:18:11.660 then i looked and believe it or not you know research the past few decades has shown that aristotle

00:18:17.260 was right you know a friend is another self nearly at the biological level basically as we grow closer to

00:18:24.300 someone emotionally the venn diagram of who they are and who we are in our brains overlaps if you put

00:18:31.460 women in an mri scanner and mention their best friend's name the areas of the brain for self 1.00

00:18:36.240 processing light up if i ask you hey is this trait true of you or true of your best friend it will take

00:18:43.620 you longer to answer than if i ask you is this trait true of you or a distant acquaintance at the closer

00:18:49.360 we get to someone close is actually a really good word we actually blur and blend our definition of

00:18:55.720 self between us and our closest friends so it's kind of funny i i refer to it almost as like this

00:19:02.080 lawyerly getting around darwin's trap is is why would i do things for people who aren't me and who

00:19:08.540 aren't my kin well our brain plays a clever trick that basically well i can justify that if i believe

00:19:14.940 that you are me and that is kind of at the biological level how empathy works and yeah as you said

00:19:21.160 friendships is a weird relationship it gets talked about a lot it's one of the most rewarding

00:19:25.340 things in our life but it's you said it's sort of nebulous right and i think one of the things

00:19:29.900 that makes friendship so valuable is how the bonds of it are just so they're easy to fray right i mean

00:19:38.420 because like a friend isn't you know usually you're not related to them so there's like no like blood

00:19:43.980 responsibility right blood you know you know because they're not your brothers you don't feel any

00:19:48.320 obligation you're not married to them so there's no marital obligation it's very it's just voluntary on both

00:19:54.160 sides and like both sides equally have to be invested in the relationship for it to even exist

00:19:58.980 and that is like no you're absolutely right what that means is that's what makes friendship in many

00:20:07.760 ways so kind of the red-headed stepchild of relationships in the sense that you know it

00:20:12.720 doesn't get the attention it doesn't have a contract or an institution or a metaphorical lobbying group

00:20:18.720 pushing for its interest the way you know an employer a spouse or kids do but on the flip side

00:20:24.960 the upside of that is that is exactly the reason why friends make us happier than any other relationship

00:20:31.220 is because it's totally voluntary it's always a choice never an obligation if you don't like your

00:20:37.860 friends they cease to be your friends if you cease to like your employer that's fine you can keep

00:20:43.500 working there you can even cease to like your spouse for a while you don't have to like your kids

00:20:47.860 but you have to like your friends otherwise you don't spend time with them anymore so friendship

00:20:53.240 is you know always kind of stress tested and pushed if they didn't make us happy we wouldn't be friends

00:20:59.160 with them anymore so friendship may get neglected but its fragility proves its purity it's like that's

00:21:05.840 why it makes us so happy because if it doesn't it wouldn't be there we're gonna take a quick break

00:21:10.100 for your word from our sponsors and now back to the show so what does the research say about what we can

00:21:18.120 do to cultivate more friendships in our lives i mean here it's like like i said i was at first i was

00:21:24.880 dealing with the dearth of research so immediately i turned to what most people would which be dale

00:21:29.240 carnegie and what i found is that his book how to win friends and influence people most of what he said

00:21:36.080 has held up like most of what he says is actually accurate the only thing he got wrong was that he

00:21:42.920 said put yourself in the shoes of of another person and the truth is we are as we talked about earlier

00:21:48.340 in terms of reading people we're pretty terrible at that we usually make wrong assumptions and it

00:21:52.220 actually makes us worse at connecting with others but a lot of the things that carnegie talked about like

00:21:56.920 finding similarity paying sincere compliments these are really powerful things the issue with

00:22:04.000 carnegie though is that carnegie was writing this book as a tool for business people and entrepreneurs

00:22:11.220 to make business contacts so it's generally pretty shallow stuff it's generally for the it's great for

00:22:18.120 the beginning parts of a relationship but this doesn't build the kind of deep fulfilling friendships

00:22:23.100 that that aristotle was talking about when he said another self to do that we need to move beyond

00:22:29.100 these we need to send what economics calls costly signals basically we need to show people a level

00:22:34.820 of investment and the two costly signals when it comes to friendship are time and vulnerability time

00:22:40.320 is always scarce in fact research shows it is the thing that friends argue about the most by giving

00:22:46.460 someone some of your time consistently that's a scarce resource you are saying you mean something to me

00:22:52.940 it's a powerful signal and vulnerability you know there's something i was terrible at i'm trying to get

00:22:58.520 better at now opening up you know talking about your fears and weaknesses you know this is information

00:23:03.880 that could be used against you by putting that information out there with someone you are you're not

00:23:08.960 saying you know shallowly saying i trust you you are demonstrating here is something that could be used

00:23:14.740 against me i feel safe enough with you to tell you this and that's critical it's it's really

00:23:21.120 what shows that you care and what usually produces trust most often is showing trust in others and

00:23:27.680 vulnerability isn't just important for relationships it's also important for our health robert garfield

00:23:32.100 at university of pennsylvania found that not opening up about your feelings your fears it prolongs minor

00:23:38.260 illnesses it makes heart attacks more likely and it makes a first heart attack more likely to be lethal

00:23:42.760 okay so the dale carnegie stuff can help you kick it off with somebody i think those are very useful

00:23:48.980 tools there but then you're saying if you want to take it to the next level you have to invest time

00:23:52.700 vulnerability into the relationship and the time factor is really important we've had uh jeffrey

00:23:56.940 hall on the podcast he's a professor at i think the university of kansas where he's

00:24:00.920 researched how much time it takes to make a friend yeah and it's made his research in the book yeah yeah

00:24:06.500 and it's it's a lot longer than you think

00:24:08.680 it's a lot longer than you think okay and then and with the vulnerability thing you highlight there's

00:24:14.960 like some a list of questions i think the new york times published this a couple years ago and

00:24:18.800 it went viral where there's like 44 questions you can ask someone and it'll make you fall in love with

00:24:24.820 each other but you're saying you can use these same sort of questions to form a quick friendship

00:24:29.840 well not a quick but it'll help facilitate that vulnerability part of a friendship absolutely it's

00:24:34.940 just this issue of really getting to know someone and going past the surface details and you know a

00:24:40.880 critical part of it is just moving past facts and getting closer to feelings because you know facts

00:24:46.120 are nice but like just by reading somebody's resume you don't really get to know them you get to know

00:24:50.600 them much better by knowing what they value you know what scares them you know what they really want

00:24:56.440 in life what's meaningful to them you know this stuff is on another level and arthur iron has this list of

00:25:02.460 questions that's really powerful for building any relationship and in fact when he first did this

00:25:08.380 research you know and was first putting together the questions two of his research assistants fell in

00:25:13.520 love so this is this is very powerful stuff and and in the marriage section of the book you know i talked

00:25:19.420 about john gottman's research which which parallels arthur iron's research that really asking questions

00:25:26.480 to your partner about deeper more serious things like knowing how they like their coffee hey fine

00:25:32.440 yeah that's great but asking your partner big questions you know what does love mean to you what

00:25:37.300 does marriage mean to you what what is a happy life to you these are tough questions but when you get

00:25:43.180 those answers this is like getting the answers to the test you know it's like you really start to

00:25:47.780 realize oh well you know the reason why they get so upset you know with me is because they they see

00:25:53.760 errands as an expression of love doing household chores as an expression of love and when i don't

00:25:58.900 do them to them that means uh you don't love me oh i didn't see it that way and you wouldn't find out

00:26:04.580 that information if you don't ask them so once you ask those tough what does love mean you know you can

00:26:10.720 start to find answers and and routines that honor both of your visions of life and you can find kind

00:26:17.260 of a north star that works for both of you but we really need to like ask more questions of the

00:26:22.580 people that we we care about on that deeper level because this is this is what really builds you

00:26:28.380 know fulfilling relationships okay so a strong friendship that sort of that aristotelian ideal

00:26:32.980 of friendship where both of you are just you're edifying each other you just make each other better

00:26:38.560 you just enjoy each other's company that's the ideal has a lot of benefits to our emotional health

00:26:42.640 even our physical health but you said there's a type of friend that actually is terrible for us

00:26:48.080 and it's a frenemy and you actually highlight research that frenemies are worse than enemies

00:26:53.660 so how does the research define a frenemy and then why are they so terrible for us

00:26:58.460 this is work by uh julian holt-wonstadt at byu and yeah it's kind of surprising we think like enemies

00:27:05.940 are the worst but the the thing is that enemies are predictable basically that we know where we stand

00:27:12.980 with them with frenemies uh the technical term is ambivalent relationships is that we don't know

00:27:19.180 if they're going to be nice today if they're going to be in pain today we we don't know and that kind

00:27:23.680 of being uncertain kind of drives us crazy it actually increases blood pressure stress potential

00:27:29.560 for depression or heart attack because it's this we're always on edge and the crazy thing is well

00:27:36.400 two crazy things is number one 50 of your relationships are ambivalent relationships and

00:27:42.920 we don't see frenemies any less than we see true friends so it can be a really stressful difficult

00:27:50.340 thing to have to deal with someone where we never know what's going to happen next and and this this

00:27:56.220 is this really drives us crazy well any research on how to handle it like what do you just avoid

00:28:00.180 those people what do you what do you do well that that's that's the funny thing is that it sounds

00:28:05.340 like kind of like the pat easy answer is get away from them but the truth is that there's actually

00:28:10.880 really really valuable insight there because what she found when she looked at it was that

00:28:16.020 with many certainly not all but with many ambivalent relationships we can leave these people alone

00:28:22.020 and often people just don't do it we feel a level of guilt we feel bad about it about drawing

00:28:29.260 stronger boundaries so you know the truth is spending less time with these frenemies is a good

00:28:35.300 idea and it's more possible than you think we just usually don't try we usually feel some level of

00:28:40.340 obligation even if these people drive us crazy but beyond that i get into the research on dealing

00:28:45.920 with toxic personalities like narcissists and usually there are things we can do to try and connect

00:28:52.200 more emotionally better on an empathetic level with these people some people their empathy muscle

00:28:57.620 isn't that strong but if we emphasize like carnegie we emphasize similarity like friendship

00:29:03.840 we emphasize vulnerability or if we emphasize community the area we live in this can help people

00:29:09.980 open up a little bit this can help people be more empathetic that can help us build a stronger

00:29:15.140 connection and finally if that doesn't work then what we should do if we can't like for instance for

00:29:21.820 somebody maybe at the office where we can't avoid them and the empathy the the tricks aren't working

00:29:28.260 then the thing we need to think about is making it a clearly transactional relationship not that we

00:29:34.980 need to say that to them but we need to treat that more like a business relationship what are you

00:29:39.780 getting what do i'm getting what am i want and to try and avoid the more emotional aspects that are

00:29:45.100 stressing us out all right so again time and vulnerability that's gonna that can make even the

00:29:49.680 worst of enemies friends uh eventually all right so let's talk about the next trope and it's love

00:29:55.700 conquers all and use this as a springboard to explore romance and you start off pointing out

00:30:02.080 that the research suggests that our present age the modern age is the best and the worst time in human

00:30:08.880 history for romance so what's going on there how can it be both both the best and the worst at the same

00:30:13.480 time you know marriage basically started out like you had a lot of rules it's hard to get out of you

00:30:20.240 didn't even generally get to you know pick the person you were married to it was a fundamental

00:30:24.620 pillar of society and it was really important and really valuable and so it was really stable

00:30:31.780 but it wasn't necessarily happy for everybody and it really put the it put society before the

00:30:39.700 individual and it was during the enlightenment era when there started to be free markets and people

00:30:45.100 were making more money that they were able to have more autonomy and they were able to marry for

00:30:49.320 love and this made marriage much more fulfilling however it also made marriage far less stable people

00:30:55.080 started to get divorced and we saw that accelerate through the 19th century until the 20th century

00:30:59.620 where there were just dramatic dramatic shifts so what happened increasingly was marriage became far less

00:31:06.940 stable in the 80s the divorce rate reached 50 in the united states it's currently now at 40 it would

00:31:12.720 be higher except fewer people are getting married than ever and what's going on here this all sounds

00:31:18.960 really negative i actually have a warning at the beginning of this this chapter because a lot of

00:31:24.460 this is initially starts out negative but there is the upside the upside is that due to the new freedoms

00:31:30.020 due to the ability to to build a do-it-yourself marriage rather than having to follow the rules that used to exist

00:31:35.560 if you do marriage right if you put in the work eli finkel at northwestern has shown that basically

00:31:41.900 the happiest marriages of today are happier than any marriages that have ever existed you know on

00:31:48.300 planet earth and the thing here that's really interesting is that that kind of you know hurts our

00:31:54.540 very passive fairy tale visions of love but the truth is the research shows you know fairy tale visions of

00:32:01.460 love that actually harms relationships because people expect things to be easy the benefit of

00:32:06.560 today is that we have more freedom eli finkel calls it the winner-take-all marriage the self-expressive

00:32:12.620 marriage if you put in the hard work if you you know really work it out with your partner and do as

00:32:17.000 necessary you can have a super happy marriage happier than any that has ever existed but the problem is

00:32:22.820 we can't just rest on our laurels because in the past you know society enforced all these norms

00:32:28.020 and that that doesn't exist anymore but if you do the work you can be happier than anyone has ever

00:32:33.620 been well let's talk about what we can do to mitigate a bad marriage right just avoid the bad

00:32:38.720 and you say that one of the reasons that marriages go south is that negative sentiment override starts

00:32:45.500 taking place in the relationship what is negative sentiment override and how do you avoid it

00:32:50.160 uh basically uh this is some work by john gotman is that you know early love is totally passive

00:32:57.340 like it just hits us and you know this and it's one of the most wonderful feelings in the world

00:33:03.100 but we don't have to do anything you know we just we just fall in love we can't stop thinking about

00:33:06.900 the person they can do no wrong we idealize them the problem is that that almost inevitably declines

00:33:14.400 entropy kind of kicks in and that so you could call the idealization of early love positive sentiment

00:33:20.900 override the problem is over time that dies down if we don't put in the effort to keep those positive

00:33:26.700 emotions alive we don't talk to our partner to understand where they're coming from as we talked

00:33:31.200 about earlier you can start to make negative assumptions about your partner and what can happen

00:33:35.520 is that positive sentiment override can actually flip to negative sentiment override basically this

00:33:41.820 is instead of the idealization of my partners if my partner does something good they're wonderful

00:33:46.760 if they do something bad well they must be having a bad day it can flip to oh well the monster did

00:33:52.640 something nice for once what do you know where you start to devilize you start to assume that your

00:33:58.100 partner has negative intentions and it it basically it just it gets worse it gets worse and then eventually

00:34:04.280 it becomes the default this is just the death knell for marriages what we need to think about here 0.84

00:34:12.200 first and foremost is again that level of communication people think that complaining is going to lead to

00:34:19.020 fighting so we should i'm just not going to raise the issue and that's not true uh gotman has found the

00:34:24.200 complaining is actually a positive because you raise the issues you get them out there the negative is

00:34:29.600 when complaining becomes criticism when you make it personal it's one thing to say hey you didn't take 1.00

00:34:35.400 out the trash it's another thing to say you didn't take out the trash because you're a lazy idiot 1.00

00:34:39.340 the first works the second doesn't communication needs to happen sometimes you're going to fight 1.00

00:34:45.100 and gotman found that 69 of ongoing marital issues never get resolved now some people might be

00:34:51.700 intimidated by that but truth is that was true of unhappy marriages and happy marriages some things

00:34:58.720 are never going to get resolved we have to focus on the regulation of conflict not always the resolution

00:35:02.980 of conflict and what's really critical is talking understanding and then boosting the positive emotions

00:35:10.880 and what that means is doing fun and exciting stuff just like you did when you first started dating

00:35:16.280 well you call this this is how you can increase positive sentiment override or just keep it going

00:35:20.480 right so you're saying at the beginning of the relationship when you got the love chemicals in

00:35:24.040 your head like everything is great about this person it starts to wear off if you want to keep those

00:35:29.100 positive sentiment override going you have to be intentional about it absolutely they split couples into two

00:35:36.980 cohorts one went on exciting dates and the other one on pleasant dates and exciting one hands down as

00:35:43.600 one researcher said adrenaline makes the heart grow fonder and this is because of the the psychological

00:35:49.320 principle of emotional contagion what that means is that whatever context we're in the emotions that we

00:35:55.580 feel in their context we will come to associate with whoever we're with so if it's just another night

00:36:01.480 of netflix and pizza you can start to associate boring feelings you know with your partner

00:36:06.800 but if you go out you go to concerts you go horseback riding you go on roller coasters

00:36:11.260 if you do the fun things that you did when you first start dating you can keep those keep that ball in

00:36:16.920 the air you can keep those positive emotions and make those associations with your partner because the

00:36:21.360 thing is a lot of people think oh we did those fun things early on in the relationship because we were

00:36:27.620 in love but the truth is that the flip is also true you fell in love because you did exciting and fun

00:36:34.500 things together no and you got to be intentional about this we've had a therapist on the podcast

00:36:39.560 i think her name's martha i can't remember her full name but anyway she has this idea of marriage 1.00

00:36:44.820 meetings where it's a 30 minute weekly meeting to do with your spouse and you break it down by

00:36:49.640 appreciating them you talk about chores but then a really important thing is you have to plan for

00:36:54.060 good times so it's like this is like it's like good times with you as a couple good times as a family

00:36:59.900 and then good times individually and that like my wife and i have been doing that for a long time

00:37:04.560 and it it does like if you don't i think a lot of people think oh if a good you know exciting time

00:37:10.420 just kind of happens spontaneously it doesn't like if you want it to happen you have to plan for it and

00:37:15.920 make it happen this is all totally true uh shelley gable at ucsb did research and found that how a

00:37:22.680 couple celebrates is actually more important than how they fight that really matters it's not obvious and

00:37:29.340 always symmetric in fact you know we all know couples who might fight like crazy or a big girl

00:37:34.760 all the time and we wonder how they can stay together and stay happy and what gotman found is

00:37:39.520 that the raw amount of negative in a relationship doesn't mean anything what means something what

00:37:46.880 makes a difference is the ratio of positive to negative and he put at ideal is five to one as long as

00:37:53.680 there's five positive things for every one negative thing the raw amount of negative doesn't matter

00:37:58.860 because there's always going to be you know negative in a relationship in fact gotman found

00:38:04.200 if it ever hits 13 positives to one negative that's actually a bad thing too because what that is almost

00:38:10.160 always indicative of is that somebody is not talking about like what's going somebody's not

00:38:16.000 talking about their feelings somebody's not opening up about the negatives that they're experiencing

00:38:19.640 somebody's holding back and that's bad so you need to think about those positives because

00:38:24.420 like i said if you do enough positive good things a lot of the negatives just don't matter as much and

00:38:31.220 as gotman found you're not going to get rid of 69 of the ongoing negative things so very often boosting

00:38:37.400 the positive is actually the better way to go yeah so i like how you break this down into increasing

00:38:41.500 positive sentiment override first is rekindle and that's like just uh do exciting things that you did

00:38:46.300 when you're first uh dating right because those exciting things will help you fall in love or keep

00:38:51.860 falling in love then you have remind yourself of intimacy through love mats and that's just

00:38:55.880 reminding yourself why you this person's great why you you fell in love with them in the first place

00:38:59.800 and then you have renew your intimacy with the michelangelo effect what's that

00:39:04.000 this is a lot of people you know try to change their partner and a this is usually not effective and b

00:39:12.860 it's also bad for the relationship but there is some research and they that's they call it the

00:39:17.220 michelangelo effect where you can actually a you can effectively change your partner and b you can

00:39:23.340 strengthen the relationship and the distinction here is that usually when people try and change

00:39:27.380 their partner whether they realize it or not an aspect of it is selfish you're trying to change

00:39:31.780 your partner until who you want them to be and the secret to the michelangelo effect is to talk to

00:39:37.100 your partner again talking important and asking them about their ideal self who do they want to be

00:39:43.480 what do they want out of life and then helping encouraging and supporting them to be their

00:39:49.360 ideal self not your ideal version of them and this is incredibly powerful when you are a cheerleader

00:39:57.140 for your partner moving towards the person that they want to be it has very powerful effects it both

00:40:04.760 helps them become better and let's face it the majority of the things that your partner wants

00:40:09.560 you know are probably things that are a positive for you and a positive for the relationship and

00:40:14.520 this has been shown to work at any age you know anybody can benefit from this you know it's you

00:40:19.500 never want to criticize the failures or negatives of your partner in this process you just want to be

00:40:25.440 there to support and celebrate when they do start to do the things that are moving them in that right

00:40:30.460 direction and like i said this helps your partner become better and it also becomes a booster for the

00:40:36.460 relationship overall yeah i like that it's called uh the michelangelo effect because the reason why

00:40:41.940 it's called the michelangelo effect is that michelangelo said at one time something like every

00:40:47.680 block of stone has a statue inside it and is the task of the sculptor to discover it i saw the angel in

00:40:54.780 the marble and carved until i set him free and this idea actually reminds me of kant's categorical

00:41:02.680 imperative to treat people as ends rather than as means so you know your spouse they have their own

00:41:10.540 end like they're not just there they don't exist so that they're who you want them to be they're not

00:41:16.160 you know they're not just a means towards your own happiness they have their own end and so you should

00:41:20.980 help them towards their end towards their telos and in doing that by helping your partner become

00:41:26.600 who they're supposed to be that'll that ultimately you know ends up being good for you and the

00:41:32.280 relationship in the end okay so to increase positive sentiment override you do these three r's

00:41:38.780 you rekindle the relationship remind yourself of intimacy through love maps renew your intimacy with

00:41:45.620 the michelangelo effect and then you have a final r and it's rewrite your story again and again like

00:41:52.500 every couple has a story about the relationship and you have to keep talking about it and telling

00:41:58.320 that story to each other so it stays at the forefront of your mind yeah basically you want

00:42:03.000 to clarify it because like almost subtextually underneath it you have a story of what your

00:42:09.080 relationship is and your partner has one too and you want to make sure those are aligned because if

00:42:14.060 they're not this can be a really bad thing but most people will say i don't know i don't have a story

00:42:19.220 i don't know it's there you just haven't thought about it like what is how do you talk to yourself

00:42:24.480 about your relationship how it is how it's grown because the the most fascinating thing is that john

00:42:31.700 gottman the researcher his claim to fame is that he can listen to couples for five minutes and with 90

00:42:38.220 plus percent accuracy predict whether they'll be divorced in five years and the craziest thing that 1.00

00:42:44.200 that alone is mind-blowing but the craziest thing how does he do it he just asks them to tell the

00:42:50.720 story of your relationship and by that question and that question alone he is often able to predict

00:42:57.200 whether they divorce or not and the key thing here the key thing he looks for in terms of that story

00:43:02.920 is celebrating the challenges is basically does the person look at their marriage and say hey yeah we

00:43:09.840 dealt with some difficult stuff but oh my god you know we overcame that we worked together you know

00:43:14.780 it made us stronger it was really great as opposed to yeah we're dealing with some stuff i mean i guess

00:43:20.380 you know i'm at versus that couple that says like yeah we dealt with things sure but hey it's really

00:43:27.320 been great we really worked it out that feeling of growth is really critical growth self-expansion this is a

00:43:33.900 huge concept but thinking about your story talking to your partner about your story asking what the

00:43:39.480 story is now versus what the ideal story is and then again you've got a roadmap you've got a north

00:43:45.940 star this is really powerful for improving a relationship all right so does love conquer all

00:43:50.600 it sounds like uh it depends on what you think of love like how you define love love does not conquer

00:43:56.260 all but your love can you know that's that's the that's the issue here is that like i said the the math

00:44:02.580 isn't isn't always great if you look at it but if you do the right things if you avoid the negatives

00:44:08.500 increase the positives an individual relationship can really be made to work we we just need to

00:44:14.140 really put in the effort because with the incredible amounts of freedom that we have in the 21st century

00:44:19.460 that means the onus is on us to keep this institution stable well eric this has been a great conversation

00:44:26.240 where can people go to learn more about the book and your work the book plays well with others is

00:44:30.800 available on amazon other booksellers the url on my blog is a little tricky for some people so if

00:44:35.500 they go to eric barker.org eric barker.org they can check out my blog where i'm usually looking at

00:44:43.020 the research to find a way to make our lives better and the best way to keep up with that

00:44:46.160 is to sign up for my newsletter fantastic well eric barker thanks for your time it's been a pleasure

00:44:49.800 it was fantastic thanks man my guest today was eric barker he's the author of the book plays well

00:44:55.160 with others available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere make sure to check out our show notes

00:44:58.900 at aom.is slash relationships we find links to resources we delve deeper into this topic

00:45:03.620 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out our website at

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The Art of Manliness - June 06, 2022

The Surprising Science Behind Building Stronger Relationships

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