hiddenbrain.org: How to Really Know Another Person

WEBVTT

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 This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedantam.

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 In the classic TV series Star Trek, Mr. Spock has a full-proof technique

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 for accurately reading the thoughts and feelings of others.

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 The Vulcan Mind Men.

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 I am Spock.

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 You or James?

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 Kirk, our minds are moving closer.

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 Closer, closer, closer, James Kirk, closer.

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 Here on Planet Earth, we have no technology that gives us direct access to the minds of others.

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 So we look for psychological clues.

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 We watch people's facial expressions to see how much they like us.

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 We read their body language to figure out when they are nervous.

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 We listen to their intonations to pick up signals about their mood.

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 How accurate are these clues?

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 How good are we at detecting what's going on in the minds of others?

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 In recent years, scientists have spent a lot of time answering these questions.

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 They've discovered that many of the clues we use to read the minds of others are suspect.

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 But they have identified one mind-reading technique that is surprisingly effective.

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 The only problem?

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 Most of us don't use it.

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 How to get inside someone else's head this week on Hidden Brain.

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 Navigating social life involves continually reading the minds of other people.

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 What could be the meaning behind my colleague's behavior?

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 What could my daughter be thinking and feeling?

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 What is it my parents really want?

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 Tessa West is a psychologist at New York University.

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 She studies interpersonal accuracy.

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 How well the attributions we make about others matches the reality of what is actually going

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 on inside their minds.

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 Tessa West, welcome to Hidden Brain.

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 Thank you so much for having me.

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 Tessa, during your undergraduate years, I understand you had a part-time job that turned

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 out to be an excellent venue for reading other people's minds and intentions.

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 What was this job?

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 The job I had was selling high-end men's shoes.

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 It was commissioned based.

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 Every pair of shoes I sold, I got about 8% back.

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 Really my income was primarily determined by selling rich people very expensive shoes

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 and hoping I sold enough of those shoes to be able to make money for tuition.

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 Why understand the sales team was often eager to find the customers who looked like they

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 would be the most lucrative customers given that your income depended partly on these commissions.

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 Absolutely.

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 The sales team developed all these clever strategies of figuring out who they could approach, who

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 would buy the most expensive shoes, and who was also the least likely to have buyers

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 remorse and want to return those shoes later.

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 They would pay attention to things like what people were wearing, how comfortable they

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 seemed in an expensive store, what their mannerisms were, even things like how much of an

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 hurry they came across, all these pieces of information were used to try to figure out

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 who the optimal customer would be.

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 When someone promising walked into the store, Tessa's colleagues on the sales team would

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 race to snag the customer.

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 We called them shoe sharks and these are the people who would immediately make a bee line

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 for the best customers.

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 You know, it was a very competitive hierarchical world selling shoes and I think you sort of

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 had to learn how to spot that customer and grab them before anybody else could, even

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 saying, hi and making eye contact, kind of count it is, this person is now my territory,

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 they're my customer, you better not come close.

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 So as you were finding your feet and sails, one time a customer came in wearing a three

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 piece suit with a poodle trailing behind him.

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 I'm guessing this customer sounded promising.

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 This customer was probably the most promising person I had encountered yet.

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 He had a fancy pocket square and he showed up with this poodle that was so well groomed.

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 You know, I could tell it's haircut, cost more than my haircut and it was huge.

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 You know, I'm a college student, I have no money.

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 He brings this giant poodle at the time of the store had a policy that you could bring

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 your little toy poodles but not a giant poodle.

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 So it took some real gumption to show up with a giant dog and he kind of strolls in all

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 the bravado in the world and immediately picks out 20 of the most expensive pairs of shoes

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 that he wants to try.

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 So I'm thinking to myself, yes, I'm going to sell all the shoes that I need for this entire

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 week just with this one customer.

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 What happened, Tessa?

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 So basically what happened was he picks out his shoes.

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 He immediately kind of embraces this high status demeanor.

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 This is super humiliating but he actually asked me to get down on my knees and allow his

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 dog to give me a kiss, which I did thinking to myself, okay, you know, this is money's money

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 I need it.

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 And then he tried on all these expensive shoes and he had me use a shoe horn and put his

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 foot in each shoe, even tie the laces for him.

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 I mean, I was with him for several hours.

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 At the end of the day, he bought nothing.

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 So he was really just there is like a power play to really show off how great he was but

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 he wasn't interested in purchasing anything.

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 So I mean, obviously this guy sounds like a real jerk but from your point of view was

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 a learning experience in terms of how well you could pick up what was happening in someone

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 else's mind.

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 Yeah, I mean, I think I learned that sometimes the things we rely on, how fancy someone's

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 clothes are, you know, how confident they appear aren't actually the best pieces of information

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 to accurately read someone's intentions or maybe I was just trying to read the wrong

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 intentions.

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 What he wanted was lots of female attention.

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 What he didn't want was expensive shoes.

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 And so I really learned a lesson that day.

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 Another time a customer comes in wearing a sweaty dirty clothes.

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 He's covered in mud.

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 I'm guessing that this is not a customer that the sales team fights over.

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 Yeah, this guy comes in.

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 He's wearing sweats.

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 He's got dirt all over him.

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 And I walk up to this guy and he's in a hurry.

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 He's very flustered and he says, you know, I need five pairs of your most comfortable shoes

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 for my gardeners.

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 So I pull up these shoes that are ugly but expensive and offer him these shoes and he says,

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 okay, just get them in three different sizes.

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 I'm desperate right now.

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 I live in Monacito, which is like where Oprah lives.

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 It's a very expensive part of Santa Barbara.

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 You know, my gardeners have blisters and I had to actually mow my own lawn today.

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 You know, a terrific thing.

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 I need you to fix my problem right away.

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 And so immediately he buys, you know, thousands of dollars worth of shoes and I learned another

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 lesson.

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 You cannot always rely on what people are wearing in judging their intentions.

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 And there I was sort of lucky to be wrong.

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 But you know, that was also a very important learning experience for me.

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 So you finish college, you get your PhD and eventually you go on the job market and at

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 one point you're invited for an interview at New York University NYU and someone told

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 you that if you wore glasses for the interview that they would take you more seriously, why

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 did you get this advice, Tessa?

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 Yeah, that's right.

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 So I think a lot of people assume that when you're a young woman, I was, you know, 25,

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 26 at the time that you need to make yourself look smarter, more professional and one piece

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 of information people use to judge that is whether you're wearing glasses.

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 So I took this advice.

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 I actually normally wear contacts, but I went out.

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 I bought some glasses that I couldn't actually afford.

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 I took my contacts out.

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 I wore the glasses on the interview, you know, hoping that that would work.

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 I also wore some outfits that other people had told me would make me, you know, look less

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 young, less girly, you know, all these kinds of things to kind of counter stereotypes.

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 And so I really, you know, went in and leaned into that advice because that was what one person's

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 lay theory was of what actually works.

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 So you get to this interview, your glasses are sliding down your nose as you talk.

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 What, what me through how the interview played out?

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 You know, the interview was very tough.

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 So I'm up there.

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 I'm giving this presentation.

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 I have a PowerPoint.

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 I'm in my uncomfortable glasses and within a minute someone raises their hand.

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 They kind of question my whole program of work.

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 And for the next hour and a half or so, just constantly those hands are popping up.

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 What did you mean by this?

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 How did you manipulate this?

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 You know, I really felt like people must hate me.

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 This is very rough.

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 I was not used to that.

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 I didn't come from a place where people are aggressive.

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 I came from a sort of nice culture where people ask questions at the end and they always

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 led with, you know, this is wonderful research.

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 How about this one additional thing?

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 This was very different.

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 I understand when you got back to your hotel that night, you saw that there was a seam

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 in your pantsuit that had come undone.

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 Yeah, just to add, it's all to injury.

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 Oh wow, now I'm reliving this interview.

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 My pants were completely ripped.

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 So on top of wondering, you know, what did people think of my research?

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 You layer onto this.

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 Oh my gosh, they were not only thinking of my research that they clearly hated, but

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 they could probably also see way too much skin that I had no intention of showing.

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 To this day, I actually won't watch the videotape of my interview because I'm horrified

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 of what I will see when I walk away from the camera.

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 Some days later, one of Tessa's mentors thought he picked up some intel from an NYU search

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 committee member at a conference.

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 So I run into my mentor after this conference and I walk into his office and his face is

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 just long and sad.

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 And he said, what happened?

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 He goes, I don't think you're getting the NYU job.

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 And my heart starts pounding and I said, you know, what happened?

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 Did they tell you I was bad?

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 I knew it.

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 I knew they thought I was bad.

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 He said, no, I saw one of the search committee members across the hall and he made eye contact

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 with me and then he made a b-line for the bathroom.

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 He didn't want to talk to me.

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 Therefore you did not get this position.

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 I'm really sorry to tell you.

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 So he thought the search committee member was avoiding him because it was going to be

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 an awkward conversation.

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 Yep.

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 Tessa resigned herself to the reality that she had lost out on the NYU job.

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 She grieved what she thought was the end of her academic career.

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 She started to think about going to cooking school.

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 Then, a couple of months later, she got a call from the head of the NYU search committee.

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 And he says, congratulations, you know, I'm here to offer you the position.

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 And I was shocked and I said, are you calling the right person?

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 And he's like, is this Tessa West?

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 Well, yeah, this is Tessa.

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 Are you sure you mean to offer me the job?

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 And he's like, absolutely, it's you.

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 And then I said, yes, I'll take it.

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 And he's like, no, no, no, no, no.

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 I'm going to pretend you didn't say that.

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 You're going to have to negotiate to get a good offer.

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 But, you know, congrats.

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 So I screwed up everything, the whole process.

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 Notice that at each step of the process, mind-reading mistakes led to faulty conclusions.

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 Tessa assumed wearing glasses would make her look smart.

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 Instead, she came across as uncomfortable.

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 She figured the tough questioning was evidence of hostility.

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 It wasn't.

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 Her mentor misread a glance from someone at a conference who was headed for the bathroom.

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 From this glance, he concluded NYU was going to reject Tessa.

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 Long again.

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 In fact, the one time Tessa had hard evidence about what the NYU committee really thought

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 of her was when the head of the committee called to offer her the job.

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 Her reaction?

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 Disbelief.

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 Errors in mind-reading produce some of their worst consequences in interpersonal relationships.

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 Some time after she joined NYU, Tessa found herself talking to a colleague from her own

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 school at a conference.

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 So go to this conference.

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 It's in San Diego, California, which is beautiful.

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 I'm kind of excited to enjoy the nice weather.

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 But I'm also very nervous because I'm a new assistant professor.

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 I feel like I'm a little bit in and over my head.

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 I came from a program that wasn't as prestigious as some of the other programs that people came

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 from.

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 And I go to this conference and I run into another assistant professor.

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 And you know, we're chatting for a few minutes.

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 And then he looks at me and says, you know, I'm really sorry.

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 I don't think I can talk to you anymore.

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 And I'm thinking, OK, this is weird.

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 And he says, you know, I think I need to spend time with people who I don't work with.

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 I really need to expand my social network.

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 So I'm going to walk away now and go talk to other people.

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 And I remember thinking, is my breath gross?

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 Am I not a big deal enough?

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 Am I not high status enough?

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 So my head is just kind of reeling with all these reasons why this person wouldn't want

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 to talk to me anymore.

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 And I felt a little bit heartbroken over that that maybe I've done something horribly wrong

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 to offend this person.

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 All of these negative thoughts are going through my mind.

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 It almost sounds like he was sort of looking down at you.

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 Yeah, I definitely felt that.

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 You know, what I felt was he was a thirsty social climber, someone who is just trying

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 really hard to get ahead and didn't really care whether he's offending someone to get

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 there and just assumed that this kind of strategy was acceptable.

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 And part of me questioned whether I was the one that was making the mistake.

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 Maybe this is actually what the people in the know do is they tell others I can't talk

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 to you, I have to go expand my social network.

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 I just felt like very lost for the cause there.

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 I understand that you later discovered that his reaction was mostly about his own anxieties.

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 They had very little to do with his feelings or attitudes towards you.

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 Is that right?

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 Yeah, I think he felt that this is what he ought to do.

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 It wasn't even what he wanted to necessarily do.

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 He was actually engaged in the conversation, but he felt like all eyes were on him and

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 other people were looking at him and thinking, you know, why is he talking to his colleague?

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 Why isn't he trying to socially connect and, you know, inferring all kinds of things about

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 him?

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 Maybe he's antisocial or, you know, maybe he refuses to speak to anyone outside of NYU.

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 He's a snob about that.

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 So all of these things were going through his mind, which led him to engage in this behavior

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 towards me that honestly had nothing to do with me.

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 So many tensions and conflicts and human relationships stem from making inaccurate attributions about

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 what is going on in other people's minds.

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 Tessa West began to think, are they tricks to getting folks to be more accurate in reading

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 other people's minds?

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 To listen to Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedantam.

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 This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedantam.

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 Psychologist Tessa West studies interpersonal accuracy.

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 How well we gauge other people's thoughts and feelings.

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 We've seen how easy it is for us to misattribute thoughts and feelings to others.

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 Which regularly, of course, many of us find ourselves at the receiving end of these errors.

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 Tessa, you've had some memorable experiences of people reading your mind wrong.

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 One of them involved a student who had been working in your lab for three years.

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 Can you tell me that story?

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 Yeah, this story is actually pretty heartbreaking for me.

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 So I've been working with a student for three years and she always seemed a little bit nervous

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 around me.

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 And one day she comes to me and confesses, you know, for the past several years I was

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 afraid to come talk to you because I thought you really hated me.

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 I said, you know, what are you talking about?

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 Why on earth would you think that?

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 And she said, well, you know, a couple years ago I saw you in the elevator and you gave

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 me the stink eye.

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 And from then on, I just decided that you disliked me.

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 Of course, I can't even remember this elevator moment.

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 I happen to have one of those faces where if I'm not actively smiling, I just look kind

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 of irritable and angry and annoyed all the time.

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 I'm like, oh, she caught me in a neutral face.

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 I know what happened.

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 And who knows what I was thinking?

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 I was probably just thinking to myself, I really want coffee like so bad right now.

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 That's all I want when she ran into me.

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 But it really struck me that this student had a snap moment with me, a thin slice.

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 We're talking 30 seconds max.

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 She inferred a ton of information from the look on my face and it shaped her behavior towards

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 me for several years.

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 So this incident spurred you to begin researching interpersonal accuracy, investigating why we

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 misattribute thoughts and feelings.

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 And again, one of the most important things you found was again, what you just identified

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 here are tendency to extrapolate from too little data to too large conclusions.

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 Yeah, I think that's true.

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 And I think it's also important that the students saw me in another contact.

17:00.040 --> 17:03.240
 She saw me in the classroom where I'm much more performative.

17:03.240 --> 17:05.480
 I tend to be very joky, fun.

17:05.480 --> 17:10.360
 I try to engage the students, is part of making a lecture come alive.

17:10.360 --> 17:13.920
 And she can trust that with see me kind of let down.

17:13.920 --> 17:18.000
 It's kind of like walking off stage after giving a big talk or a big speech, running into

17:18.000 --> 17:19.440
 the speaker in the bathroom.

17:19.440 --> 17:24.240
 There are mannerisms are going to be very different than when you watch them displaying

17:24.240 --> 17:27.320
 very deliberative over the top friendly behaviors.

17:27.320 --> 17:31.080
 And I think what really struck her was the contrast between those two.

17:31.080 --> 17:32.520
 And I don't think her experience is unique.

17:32.520 --> 17:37.040
 I think a lot of us actually make inaccurate judgments of people because we're contrasting

17:37.040 --> 17:39.480
 them in two very different settings.

17:39.480 --> 17:43.120
 And I think we see this happen all the time when students run into their teachers outside

17:43.120 --> 17:44.120
 of the classroom.

17:44.120 --> 17:48.320
 I mean, just the other day I was with my son and he ran into a camp counselor who was

17:48.320 --> 17:52.040
 wearing headphones and the counselor just kind of kept walking, you know, waved and said,

17:52.040 --> 17:54.360
 hi, and kept walking and he's a mommy.

17:54.360 --> 17:57.040
 Why doesn't my counselor like me and like he's busy, honey?

17:57.040 --> 18:01.440
 Like, I know he's normally very friendly towards you when you're playing dodgeball.

18:01.440 --> 18:03.080
 But this is a different context.

18:03.080 --> 18:07.400
 So I think there is something to be said for learning that the context matters and reminding

18:07.400 --> 18:09.520
 yourself of that.

18:09.520 --> 18:12.640
 So another version of context is what we might call culture.

18:12.640 --> 18:17.320
 And when I think about the interview that you had at NYU, part of what was happening during

18:17.320 --> 18:22.520
 that interview, which came across as very aggressive to you, was really reflective of the internal

18:22.520 --> 18:24.480
 culture at NYU.

18:24.480 --> 18:29.040
 Can you talk about that idea, both of what was happening at NYU that prompted that kind

18:29.040 --> 18:30.040
 of interview?

18:30.040 --> 18:34.680
 Well, it's a larger point of the ways in which culture influences how we're reading other

18:34.680 --> 18:35.680
 people's minds.

18:35.680 --> 18:40.720
 Yeah, I think so at NYU, what was interesting is that I actually took that behavior of

18:40.720 --> 18:43.360
 aggression and I infertilement dislike.

18:43.360 --> 18:45.920
 And in fact, the opposite is true at NYU.

18:45.920 --> 18:51.040
 The more engaged people are, the more questions they ask, the more they push you, the smarter

18:51.040 --> 18:53.680
 they think you are, the more interested they are.

18:53.680 --> 18:57.320
 And so I actually was attending to the right information, but I was interpreting it in

18:57.320 --> 18:59.240
 the opposite way.

18:59.240 --> 19:03.600
 And you know, had I had known that about the culture that lots of questions means great

19:03.600 --> 19:04.600
 things.

19:04.600 --> 19:06.480
 It means they think you're smart, they're interested in the work.

19:06.480 --> 19:09.280
 I would have made a very different attribution for that behavior.

19:09.280 --> 19:11.600
 And I think this actually can happen a lot.

19:11.600 --> 19:15.440
 We walk in a different culture as we're aware that we have this cultural bias that maybe

19:15.440 --> 19:18.840
 we're not totally exposed to what those behaviors mean.

19:18.840 --> 19:23.120
 And we often make incorrect inferences when we form those impressions because we're anchored

19:23.120 --> 19:27.560
 so much on our own culture, on our own experiences.

19:27.560 --> 19:31.400
 We've also studied the phenomenon of something called egocentric bias.

19:31.400 --> 19:32.800
 What is this, Tessa?

19:32.800 --> 19:37.440
 Egocentric bias is probably one of the toughest things to get people to overcome when it comes

19:37.440 --> 19:39.120
 to making accurate impressions.

19:39.120 --> 19:43.880
 So this is the idea that what goes on in our own minds is the richest source of information

19:43.880 --> 19:45.400
 that we have.

19:45.400 --> 19:50.920
 And we anchor what we think other people are thinking and feeling, experiencing based on

19:50.920 --> 19:53.000
 our own experiences.

19:53.000 --> 19:57.080
 So in the case of the bad interaction you had with your work colleague at the Psychology

19:57.080 --> 20:01.400
 Conference, you came into that interaction with so many anxieties.

20:01.400 --> 20:05.800
 When NYU said they wanted to hire you, your question, if they had called the right person,

20:05.800 --> 20:09.360
 if they knew what they were doing, when you got to the conference, you felt like you didn't

20:09.360 --> 20:11.840
 really belong in a crowd of senior scholars.

20:11.840 --> 20:15.800
 So in some ways it seems like you may have been projecting your own internal anxieties

20:15.800 --> 20:18.160
 when you started reading the mind of your colleague.

20:18.160 --> 20:19.160
 Absolutely.

20:19.160 --> 20:21.880
 I was definitely projecting my own internal anxieties.

20:21.880 --> 20:27.480
 And I think especially when the situation is a little bit unclear what the cause is, those

20:27.480 --> 20:31.200
 ambiguous situations are perfect breeding grounds for egocentric bias.

20:31.200 --> 20:34.440
 We're not quite sure why someone's doing what they're doing.

20:34.440 --> 20:37.960
 So we're just going to assume it's because of all this stuff going on in our own heads.

20:37.960 --> 20:41.800
 And I think the funny thing about that example is the person who engaged in those behaviors

20:41.800 --> 20:44.680
 was also had an egocentric bias.

20:44.680 --> 20:48.280
 He was doing these things because he thought everyone was staring at him and this is

20:48.280 --> 20:49.840
 what he ought to do.

20:49.840 --> 20:53.560
 And so the egocentric bias is actually going in both directions between the perceiver

20:53.560 --> 20:58.800
 and me and also the actor, the target, that person.

20:58.800 --> 21:02.480
 There's been interesting research that shows that we are more likely to deploy projection

21:02.480 --> 21:05.680
 when we see the other person as being similar to us.

21:05.680 --> 21:09.680
 But when we see people as different from us, we tend to fall back on a different mental

21:09.680 --> 21:13.000
 era that produces its own form of misattribution.

21:13.000 --> 21:17.520
 Can you talk about how stereotypes might be a form of misattribution?

21:17.520 --> 21:21.040
 Other types are one of the biggest sources of information we rely on when it comes to

21:21.040 --> 21:24.680
 judging other people, especially if we don't know them personally.

21:24.680 --> 21:29.960
 So this influences person perception and accuracy in particular because these expectations

21:29.960 --> 21:35.120
 just serve as a lens through which we perceive and attend to all the information around

21:35.120 --> 21:36.120
 us.

21:36.120 --> 21:39.920
 If we expect it to happen, we're more likely to attend to information that's consistent

21:39.920 --> 21:41.520
 with those expectations.

21:41.520 --> 21:46.000
 We forget the stuff that's not consistent and we completely write it off.

21:46.000 --> 21:52.480
 So don't pay attention to it at all or forget it completely.

21:52.480 --> 21:58.080
 The problem is not limited to our errors in perception.

21:58.080 --> 22:03.440
 We constantly give off inaccurate signals to other people, making it more likely they

22:03.440 --> 22:07.200
 will read a strong.

22:07.200 --> 22:11.720
 In one study, Tessa found people went out of their way to communicate the opposite of

22:11.720 --> 22:13.720
 what they were really thinking.

22:13.720 --> 22:17.760
 We found in this study, so we brought people in, we had them do a negotiation task.

22:17.760 --> 22:20.560
 There was a winner and a loser of the negotiation.

22:20.560 --> 22:25.520
 We had them give feedback to each other on how they performed, what they could do better.

22:25.520 --> 22:29.000
 We manipulated whether that feedback was asked for or not.

22:29.000 --> 22:33.800
 What we found was when you're giving feedback to someone that they didn't ask for, people

22:33.800 --> 22:37.800
 actually smiled more, they were friendly and they're delivery.

22:37.800 --> 22:42.040
 Despite the fact that they're often talking to someone who just lost to them, the only

22:42.040 --> 22:46.640
 thing they could come up with were great things that they did well in the negotiation.

22:46.640 --> 22:49.960
 Even in context where constructive feedback makes the most sense, they're like, it was

22:49.960 --> 22:52.320
 wonderful when you did XYZ.

22:52.320 --> 22:56.720
 They're intentionally giving information to the world that isn't reflecting what they're

22:56.720 --> 22:57.720
 actually thinking.

22:57.720 --> 23:02.400
 It's like this deception in an effort to create rapport, to build a relationship with

23:02.400 --> 23:04.720
 someone.

23:04.720 --> 23:09.200
 Tessa and other researchers have also found that power dynamic shape, whether we accurately

23:09.200 --> 23:12.600
 reveal what is happening inside our minds.

23:12.600 --> 23:16.600
 Low power people tend to mask what they are thinking and feeling.

23:16.600 --> 23:21.280
 High power people are more likely to broadcast their internal thoughts.

23:21.280 --> 23:24.400
 Things get flipped when it comes to perception.

23:24.400 --> 23:29.120
 People with less power are better at reading the minds states of the powerful.

23:29.120 --> 23:32.320
 Children for example, often have their parents number.

23:32.320 --> 23:33.320
 Absolutely.

23:33.320 --> 23:37.440
 My son has figured out that if I'm typing on my phone is the best time to ask to purchase

23:37.440 --> 23:41.800
 some Pokemon card on Amazon.

23:41.800 --> 23:45.840
 If I'm making dinner, it is a bad time because I hate making dinner and I'm in a bad

23:45.840 --> 23:46.840
 mood.

23:46.840 --> 23:48.760
 Yes, kids learn these things.

23:48.760 --> 23:50.160
 Kids in classrooms learn these things.

23:50.160 --> 23:54.800
 I think people pick up on these cues when they're out come dependent upon others.

23:54.800 --> 23:59.440
 Some of the examples we've discussed can sound humorous, but errors in mind reading can

23:59.440 --> 24:01.840
 have serious consequences.

24:01.840 --> 24:07.000
 A black patient who feels a doctor is being inattentive or hostile might be less likely

24:07.000 --> 24:09.000
 to reveal a medical problem.

24:09.000 --> 24:13.760
 A doctor who falls back on stereotypes can miss something important.

24:13.760 --> 24:19.040
 Tessa has also found that mistakes in reading the minds of others leads to worse performance

24:19.040 --> 24:20.400
 in teams.

24:20.400 --> 24:26.480
 So there is something unique and special about your ability to read how people are relating

24:26.480 --> 24:31.880
 to one another on teams and that ability is distinctly related to your ability in your

24:31.880 --> 24:36.600
 own teams to perform well and also to not have status conflict, to not be jockeying

24:36.600 --> 24:41.120
 for status with another person, to know when it's time to step back and when it's time that

24:41.120 --> 24:43.920
 you can take over a position of power.

24:43.920 --> 24:49.320
 We have found that this ability to read the room predicts how well you do on a creativity

24:49.320 --> 24:50.320
 task.

24:50.320 --> 24:52.960
 It also predicts what we call status conflict.

24:52.960 --> 24:57.120
 This is the idea that people were fighting the entire time.

24:57.120 --> 24:59.720
 We couldn't figure out who should be in charge.

24:59.720 --> 25:03.120
 No one really agreed at the end of the day who's in charge.

25:03.120 --> 25:04.640
 What people's roles are.

25:04.640 --> 25:09.280
 I think what's interesting about this is status hierarchy is often get a bad reputation.

25:09.280 --> 25:15.040
 But figuring those out, conferring status early on is critical for group success.

25:15.040 --> 25:20.480
 This is the ability to read the room directly related to the ability to just get that process

25:20.480 --> 25:24.360
 over with, move on with things, and then work well together.

25:24.360 --> 25:26.400
 We also found that there's a bad apple effect.

25:26.400 --> 25:30.040
 If you put one person on a team who's really bad at this, they can completely disrupt

25:30.040 --> 25:31.280
 the group process.

25:31.280 --> 25:33.280
 They're interrupting the wrong people.

25:33.280 --> 25:36.280
 They're taking over when someone important is saying something.

25:36.280 --> 25:41.320
 And so even just one person who's bad at this kind of person perception skills can completely

25:41.320 --> 25:47.240
 throw off and disrupt group processes.

25:47.240 --> 25:51.800
 When we come back, the magic trick to discovering what is really going on in someone else's

25:51.800 --> 25:55.080
 mind.

25:55.080 --> 25:56.480
 You're listening to Hidden Brain.

25:56.480 --> 26:07.080
 I'm Shankar Vedantam.

26:07.080 --> 26:08.080
 This is Hidden Brain.

26:08.080 --> 26:10.080
 I'm Shankar Vedantam.

26:10.080 --> 26:13.880
 Tessa West is a psychologist at New York University.

26:13.880 --> 26:19.120
 She studies the benefits of interpersonal accuracy, coming up with the right attributions for

26:19.120 --> 26:21.320
 other people's behavior.

26:21.320 --> 26:26.360
 Tessa and other researchers have tested a variety of techniques to induce people to become

26:26.360 --> 26:31.600
 more accurate as they read other people's minds.

26:31.600 --> 26:35.800
 Tessa figured that one reason people might be bad at reading other minds is because they

26:35.800 --> 26:38.480
 are not motivated to do a good job.

26:38.480 --> 26:41.120
 She thought, why don't we fix that?

26:41.120 --> 26:48.920
 She offered volunteers as much as $100 to accurately guess what their romantic partners were thinking.

26:48.920 --> 26:55.680
 If motivation was the problem, cold, hard cash ought to correct the problem.

26:55.680 --> 26:59.520
 We found that by and large, it doesn't really work.

26:59.520 --> 27:04.480
 This was our attempt at really testing this idea that inaccuracy is really about motivation.

27:04.480 --> 27:07.760
 If you give people money, you can get them to be right.

27:07.760 --> 27:11.520
 There's a little bit of evidence to support it, but nothing that I would be too confident

27:11.520 --> 27:12.520
 in.

27:12.520 --> 27:17.320
 The fact that monetary incentives fail to improve people's accuracy in reading the minds

27:17.320 --> 27:21.160
 of their romantic partners told Tessa something important.

27:21.160 --> 27:24.680
 A lack of motivation might not be the problem.

27:24.680 --> 27:27.640
 You can put people in experiments where they're not motivated to be accurate.

27:27.640 --> 27:29.480
 They have no reason to care.

27:29.480 --> 27:34.000
 You can give them money and basically just make them pay more attention.

27:34.000 --> 27:38.280
 I think in the real world, in naturalistic interactions, we're all motivated to be accurate.

27:38.280 --> 27:39.800
 We all actually care.

27:39.800 --> 27:41.800
 There's often a lot on the line.

27:41.800 --> 27:45.600
 Offering that incentive just doesn't really get us there.

27:45.600 --> 27:51.760
 Another intervention has involved asking volunteers to engage in perspective taking, to imagine

27:51.760 --> 27:56.000
 putting themselves in other people's shoes as a way of getting a better understanding of

27:56.000 --> 27:59.080
 what's happening in the minds of other people.

27:59.080 --> 28:02.880
 How do these experiments turn out and what do they find, Tessa?

28:02.880 --> 28:05.200
 The shorter answer is they don't work.

28:05.200 --> 28:09.640
 What they do is they actually increase your confidence in your ability to read people.

28:09.640 --> 28:12.720
 They can reduce that egocentric bias we talked about.

28:12.720 --> 28:16.440
 They do not increase accuracy because they're not actually giving you any information that

28:16.440 --> 28:18.480
 you can use to make judgments.

28:18.480 --> 28:20.840
 In some cases, they actually backfire.

28:20.840 --> 28:25.120
 If you're engaging in an interaction with someone from a different race, a different culture,

28:25.120 --> 28:30.160
 and I tell you to perspective take, what that can do is make you feel very anxious and uncomfortable.

28:30.160 --> 28:33.800
 Are they going to think I'm prejudiced or racist or uncomfortable around them?

28:33.800 --> 28:38.040
 It actually leads you to be even more egocentric in your head than if I hadn't given you that

28:38.040 --> 28:39.800
 manipulation at all.

28:39.800 --> 28:45.800
 Here we are again with another intuitively interesting potential manipulation that just simply

28:45.800 --> 28:49.560
 doesn't work and often actually leads people to be less accurate.

28:49.560 --> 28:53.440
 It's kind of astonishing isn't it that we still hear the admonishment to take other people's

28:53.440 --> 28:56.280
 perspectives as the cure to mistreating their minds?

28:56.280 --> 28:59.240
 I mean, that advice I think is still pretty widespread.

28:59.240 --> 29:00.240
 It's very widespread.

29:00.240 --> 29:04.800
 You hear it from everything from romantic relationships to improving workplace relationships

29:04.800 --> 29:09.720
 and intergroup contact, but it does nothing for accuracy.

29:09.720 --> 29:15.560
 In a third approach to try and boost people's accuracy in terms of their attributions,

29:15.560 --> 29:21.560
 you offer study subjects, alternative explanations for the behavior of their conversation partner.

29:21.560 --> 29:27.280
 This was the idea that if you give people benign explanations for other people's behavior,

29:27.280 --> 29:31.680
 that will allow people to settle into the interaction, make fewer mind-reading errors,

29:31.680 --> 29:33.920
 generally get along better.

29:33.920 --> 29:35.680
 Was your hope born out?

29:35.680 --> 29:36.680
 It was not.

29:36.680 --> 29:41.080
 This was one of the more frustrating academic experiences I had.

29:41.080 --> 29:44.360
 I woke up in the middle of the night and I thought I had this brilliant idea, which was

29:44.360 --> 29:45.360
 this.

29:45.360 --> 29:49.920
 I know that anxiety can be very disruptive to interracial interactions.

29:49.920 --> 29:54.640
 One of the reasons why is when we're interacting with someone who comes across as anxious,

29:54.640 --> 29:57.960
 we think it's because they don't like us because of our race.

29:57.960 --> 30:01.320
 Therefore, the solution might be, well, let's just fix that part.

30:01.320 --> 30:05.560
 Let's give them an attribution for anxiety that has nothing to do with race.

30:05.560 --> 30:09.480
 What we did was we brought people in and we told them that their partner was a little

30:09.480 --> 30:13.160
 bit jittery because they had a couple cups of coffee too much that day.

30:13.160 --> 30:16.400
 That can actually lead them to appear anxious and uncomfortable.

30:16.400 --> 30:20.160
 They then interacted with someone who was the same race or a different race than them.

30:20.160 --> 30:24.160
 We are convinced that this information and interracial interaction would lead people to be

30:24.160 --> 30:28.080
 more engaged and more accurate in mind-reading and all of these things.

30:28.080 --> 30:30.560
 When I came to analyze the data, I got this huge effect.

30:30.560 --> 30:35.400
 It was one of the biggest effects I've ever gotten in the opposite direction.

30:35.400 --> 30:37.440
 It actually made things much worse.

30:37.440 --> 30:40.600
 The minute we told them anxiety was at play, that's all they could think about.

30:40.600 --> 30:44.760
 They actually ended up seeing anxiety in their partner that wasn't even there.

30:44.760 --> 30:49.760
 That attribution just heightened the attention to anxious-related cues.

30:49.760 --> 30:53.400
 Imagine walking into a job interview and you say to the person, I'm sorry, I'm a little

30:53.400 --> 30:57.480
 bit fidgety right now, but I just had too much coffee this morning.

30:57.480 --> 31:00.800
 You might think, well, that's going to make them think I'm actually comfortable.

31:00.800 --> 31:02.000
 All they're thinking now is great.

31:02.000 --> 31:05.120
 I'm interacting with a super-anxious person and they're only going to attend to your

31:05.120 --> 31:09.600
 anxiety-related cues into nothing else.

31:09.600 --> 31:14.840
 In popular culture, people have long believed that there are ways to read other people's

31:14.840 --> 31:15.840
 body language.

31:15.840 --> 31:20.880
 Can you talk about this idea, the enduring popularity of reading people's body language

31:20.880 --> 31:25.560
 to understand what's happening in their minds and what science has found about the accuracy

31:25.560 --> 31:28.000
 of this technique?

31:28.000 --> 31:33.720
 There's so much intuitive appeal to, if I could just learn the behaviors, the cues, I could

31:33.720 --> 31:36.080
 figure out what's going on in people's minds.

31:36.080 --> 31:39.280
 I think, sure, there are some shared cues.

31:39.280 --> 31:41.600
 If I'm smiling, I'm probably happy.

31:41.600 --> 31:45.800
 But by and large, I think people behave really idiosyncratically.

31:45.800 --> 31:52.620
 What I look like as hungry, another person looks like as upset or angry, and really just

31:52.620 --> 31:58.920
 trying to learn generalized cues to read people's behaviors never really works because it's

31:58.920 --> 32:01.320
 a lot like lie detection.

32:01.320 --> 32:05.400
 Individuals might have tells, but there's no such thing as a shared tell what everybody

32:05.400 --> 32:06.560
 does when they're lying.

32:06.560 --> 32:10.840
 The same thing is true with human mind reading and perception and behavior.

32:10.840 --> 32:15.200
 There's just no shared set of behaviors everybody does when they're feeling angry or happy

32:15.200 --> 32:17.640
 or irritated and so forth.

32:17.640 --> 32:20.880
 We're really looking at a litany of failures here, Tess.

32:20.880 --> 32:26.920
 If we mention several different techniques to try and get people to be more accurate,

32:26.920 --> 32:31.800
 have you found anything that does help us accurately get inside the minds of other people?

32:31.800 --> 32:32.800
 We have.

32:32.800 --> 32:34.360
 The good news is we're not all doomed.

32:34.360 --> 32:40.080
 I think social science has really been in the business of understanding how can we change

32:40.080 --> 32:43.240
 the way people are thinking to improve accuracy?

32:43.240 --> 32:46.720
 It's really putting the burden on the perceiver to become more accurate.

32:46.720 --> 32:51.080
 But what we actually know from social science is we need to stop trying to read people and

32:51.080 --> 32:54.480
 actually get the world to tell you what it thinks and feels.

32:54.480 --> 32:56.240
 Don't try to read the world.

32:56.240 --> 33:01.360
 The manipulations that work are all about clarifying the information that other people are giving

33:01.360 --> 33:04.160
 to you, seeking that information out.

33:04.160 --> 33:11.000
 I think Nick Eppley and his work talks about perspective getting, explicitly asking people,

33:11.000 --> 33:12.400
 what are your thoughts and feelings?

33:12.400 --> 33:14.120
 Tell me about your opinions.

33:14.120 --> 33:18.760
 This seems so overly obvious and intuitive, but people just simply don't do it.

33:18.760 --> 33:21.280
 Instead, they focus on what's going on in their own heads.

33:21.280 --> 33:24.560
 But really, if you can get the world to tell you what it's thinking and feeling, that's

33:24.560 --> 33:28.160
 your best bet at improving your interpersonal accuracy.

33:28.160 --> 33:32.600
 So you're saying the best way of figuring out what's inside someone else's mind is to

33:32.600 --> 33:33.600
 ask them?

33:33.600 --> 33:34.600
 That's right.

33:34.600 --> 33:37.040
 And you know, it's hard.

33:37.040 --> 33:38.880
 We have a lot of reasons why it's hard.

33:38.880 --> 33:43.280
 But asking is really the only thing we found that truly works to improve interpersonal

33:43.280 --> 33:45.520
 accuracy?

33:45.520 --> 33:52.040
 So in some ways, that advice is sort of so comically obvious, but many of us don't realize

33:52.040 --> 33:55.800
 it's the most effective way to understand what's happening inside other people's heads.

33:55.800 --> 34:01.280
 And surely some of this is because we widely overestimate our ability to read other people's

34:01.280 --> 34:02.280
 minds.

34:02.280 --> 34:07.320
 And we believe that we actually need to ask them, we can just watch how they're crossing

34:07.320 --> 34:12.440
 their arms or we can infer from how they look at us in an elevator, what's happening in

34:12.440 --> 34:16.840
 their minds, or we can deduce from how they behave in an interview what they really think

34:16.840 --> 34:20.840
 of us, that we are so confident about our mind reading abilities that we don't do the most

34:20.840 --> 34:21.840
 obvious thing.

34:21.840 --> 34:22.840
 That's right.

34:22.840 --> 34:27.520
 I think people tend to be very confident, but unfortunately, their confidence in their

34:27.520 --> 34:32.520
 ability to mind read is correlated almost zero with their actual ability to mind read.

34:32.520 --> 34:37.280
 And they're rarely actually getting the feedback that these two things are completely misaligned.

34:37.280 --> 34:42.280
 Is it possible that our overconfidence in our abilities to read other people's minds

34:42.280 --> 34:46.040
 is exaggerated when it comes to people who are close to us?

34:46.040 --> 34:50.480
 In other words, if I know my partner, my spouse, my parents, if I know these people very

34:50.480 --> 34:54.320
 well, it almost seems as if well, I should know what's happening inside their minds because

34:54.320 --> 34:55.760
 I'm so familiar with them.

34:55.760 --> 35:01.080
 You know, one of the funnest findings I think in social science is how in marriages, we're

35:01.080 --> 35:03.960
 actually the most accurate at the newlywed stage.

35:03.960 --> 35:09.640
 And as your marriage progresses by, you know, your later years, you tend to actually just

35:09.640 --> 35:16.440
 completely base your judgments of that person on yourself because you are so confident.

35:16.440 --> 35:18.200
 You stop paying attention.

35:18.200 --> 35:21.480
 Then you end up in these conversations of like, I always thought you loved lobster and

35:21.480 --> 35:24.240
 your partner's like, I haven't like lobster in 30 years.

35:24.240 --> 35:26.520
 You should know that, but this is common.

35:26.520 --> 35:27.520
 We're overconfident.

35:27.520 --> 35:31.160
 We can get a little bit lazy as relationships progress.

35:31.160 --> 35:34.840
 If the advice to ask people what they are thinking instead of trying to guess what they are

35:34.840 --> 35:39.800
 thinking sounds comically obvious, there are some specific techniques that Tessa and others

35:39.800 --> 35:42.760
 have found that are less obvious.

35:42.760 --> 35:47.720
 The first is, if you want to know why someone did something or said something, don't

35:47.720 --> 35:50.480
 wait for a week or a month to ask them.

35:50.480 --> 35:55.080
 Yeah, I think this is a common approach a lot of us use and I think, you know, the main

35:55.080 --> 35:57.600
 issue here is that memories are fallible.

35:57.600 --> 36:02.200
 We can barely even remember what we had for lunch yesterday, let alone what we were thinking

36:02.200 --> 36:04.680
 about, you know, weeks and sometimes months later.

36:04.680 --> 36:09.640
 And so you're just not going to get accurate information when you're using fallible memories

36:09.640 --> 36:13.720
 plus, you know, people just filling in the gaps with current information that wasn't relevant

36:13.720 --> 36:16.520
 to the event of the past.

36:16.520 --> 36:21.040
 When you want to talk about the difference between asking global questions and specific

36:21.040 --> 36:25.040
 questions because it turns out this is another arrow we make when we ask people what's going

36:25.040 --> 36:26.040
 on inside their minds.

36:26.040 --> 36:32.440
 Yeah, I think most of us have this intuition that if we ask someone something global, we're

36:32.440 --> 36:34.840
 going to get more information from them.

36:34.840 --> 36:39.400
 So for instance, I could ask you, you know, do you trust me?

36:39.400 --> 36:44.280
 Are you happy in this relationship or, you know, do you like it when we, you know, go

36:44.280 --> 36:48.360
 to movies or do you like it when we order Thai food?

36:48.360 --> 36:50.880
 You know, the latter two are very specific questions.

36:50.880 --> 36:52.640
 The former are very global.

36:52.640 --> 36:56.200
 It's very hard for us to get accurate answers about those things.

36:56.200 --> 37:00.480
 We don't even know what the person who's answering that question is basing their answer on,

37:00.480 --> 37:04.720
 for instance, because it's so global, it's so kind of nebulous in general.

37:04.720 --> 37:08.680
 It's very tough for us to kind of learn how to read people when we're just asking these

37:08.680 --> 37:11.120
 very kind of non-specific questions.

37:11.120 --> 37:15.400
 So instead of asking a question like, do you love me? Maybe it's more effective to say,

37:15.400 --> 37:20.200
 tell me about the time we went on this date and, you know, whether, what is it about

37:20.200 --> 37:21.840
 this date that you actually enjoyed?

37:21.840 --> 37:22.840
 That's right.

37:22.840 --> 37:23.840
 What about this date?

37:23.840 --> 37:28.800
 Did you enjoy, you know, don't ask people whether you're good and bad, ask what about

37:28.800 --> 37:32.760
 you in bed they like or dislike and what about that you're cooking?

37:32.760 --> 37:35.480
 You know, they like or dislike specifics are better.

37:35.480 --> 37:38.760
 And I think if we go back to the previous finding that we tend to give people positive

37:38.760 --> 37:43.480
 feedback and more uncomfortable, the more global the feedback, the more sort of positive

37:43.480 --> 37:44.480
 it's going to be.

37:44.480 --> 37:48.600
 And that, by definition, is just going to be biased towards inaccurate feedback, especially

37:48.600 --> 37:57.600
 when you want, you know, even critical information from someone.

37:57.600 --> 38:02.520
 Can you talk about the idea that besides asking questions of other people to elicit what's

38:02.520 --> 38:07.480
 happening inside their minds, we should go to some lengths to become clearer in what's

38:07.480 --> 38:08.840
 going on inside our minds.

38:08.840 --> 38:10.280
 So people are trying to read us.

38:10.280 --> 38:12.920
 We're often giving model signals to other people.

38:12.920 --> 38:16.320
 If we want better communication all the way around, it's not just that we should get

38:16.320 --> 38:17.800
 better at reading other people's minds.

38:17.800 --> 38:23.000
 We should make our signals clearer so that other people can read our minds better.

38:23.000 --> 38:24.320
 That's right.

38:24.320 --> 38:27.640
 We often assume that our, you know, we have a transparency bias.

38:27.640 --> 38:32.000
 We assume that what's going on in our thoughts, what's going on in our emotions, our minds

38:32.000 --> 38:35.680
 and so forth is just readily apparent to people and it's not.

38:35.680 --> 38:39.680
 And I've actually had to be extremely explicit in what I'm thinking and feeling.

38:39.680 --> 38:43.520
 And I learned this one in the classroom in the pandemic that, you know, if I don't tell

38:43.520 --> 38:47.240
 people exactly what I'm thinking at that moment, they're not going to know they don't have

38:47.240 --> 38:48.760
 access to cues.

38:48.760 --> 38:53.000
 If I'll awkward it first, but I think telling people, I'm sorry, I'm not frustrated with

38:53.000 --> 38:54.000
 you.

38:54.000 --> 38:58.240
 I'm frustrated with my computer or that side didn't mean I'm irritated with you.

38:58.240 --> 39:00.760
 That side meant I'm a little bit tired or whatever.

39:00.760 --> 39:04.800
 I think those little kinds of pieces of information, people can pick up on and learn

39:04.800 --> 39:06.680
 how to read you more accurately in the future.

39:06.680 --> 39:12.640
 So those are really critical to express not just to perceive in others.

39:12.640 --> 39:16.440
 And I'm wondering during the pandemic when so many of us were wearing masks, whether

39:16.440 --> 39:20.560
 it became even harder now to pick up on cues from other people and whether we needed to go

39:20.560 --> 39:25.640
 to even greater lengths to actually clarify what was going on inside our heads.

39:25.640 --> 39:26.640
 Absolutely.

39:26.640 --> 39:30.960
 I think a lot of us lost those, you know, nonverbal behaviors that were used to relying

39:30.960 --> 39:35.320
 on, we couldn't tell if someone was smiling under there or frowning.

39:35.320 --> 39:39.440
 And now that I've done this sort of explicit thing and I've taken the mask off, I'm still

39:39.440 --> 39:44.160
 doing it and I've realized there's utility to it even when those cues are available.

39:44.160 --> 39:47.400
 And after the elevator, I've learned that my face doesn't reflect what I'm thinking

39:47.400 --> 39:48.400
 anyway.

39:48.400 --> 39:51.320
 So I should always be super clear with people what I'm thinking and feeling.

39:51.320 --> 39:58.440
 You know, I'm wondering, Tessa, that, you know, when I think about people who are on

39:58.440 --> 40:02.520
 the autism spectrum, for example, these are people who sometimes have trouble reading

40:02.520 --> 40:07.160
 the minds of others and have to learn with care and deliberation how to understand others

40:07.160 --> 40:09.440
 intentions, how to communicate their own.

40:09.440 --> 40:14.280
 But as this conversation's unfolded, I've really come to think that maybe all of us might

40:14.280 --> 40:18.440
 benefit in some ways from some of the skills training that people who are on the autism spectrum

40:18.440 --> 40:19.440
 receive.

40:19.440 --> 40:21.120
 I absolutely think that's true.

40:21.120 --> 40:25.080
 I think kind of what's fascinating about people who are diagnosed on the spectrum is

40:25.080 --> 40:28.600
 the minute they receive that diagnosis, they're sort of told that they're not good at giving

40:28.600 --> 40:31.080
 off signals, they're not good at reading signals.

40:31.080 --> 40:34.600
 And so they have to be very deliberative and expressing what they're thinking and feeling

40:34.600 --> 40:37.440
 and also asking information from people.

40:37.440 --> 40:41.040
 And I think, you know, because they're getting that skills training, you know, really out

40:41.040 --> 40:46.120
 of a fear that they're going to get these social interactions wrong, they get much better

40:46.120 --> 40:47.120
 at this.

40:47.120 --> 40:51.040
 And, you know, they're much more rehearsed with it than people who aren't diagnosed who

40:51.040 --> 40:52.040
 are neurotypical.

40:52.040 --> 40:55.960
 Even though I'm with you 100 percent, I think we could actually all benefit from some of

40:55.960 --> 40:57.960
 this training.

40:57.960 --> 41:02.880
 I'm wondering if there are limits to this advice of trying to be explicit and trying to

41:02.880 --> 41:07.480
 ask people explicitly about what's happening inside their minds.

41:07.480 --> 41:11.520
 Are there situations and relationships, for example, as people are getting to know

41:11.520 --> 41:17.120
 one another or in work situations where in some ways it might be inappropriate or problematic

41:17.120 --> 41:18.840
 to make things too explicit?

41:18.840 --> 41:19.840
 Yes.

41:19.840 --> 41:23.360
 I'm enjoying a new workplace, for instance, there are norms about things you can and can't

41:23.360 --> 41:24.360
 ask about.

41:24.360 --> 41:28.640
 And I think there's certainly social situations where you're just simply not allowed because

41:28.640 --> 41:32.840
 it's non-normative to ask someone what their behavior means.

41:32.840 --> 41:37.480
 You know, I often think about this in the Dr. Patient Interaction context where if a patient

41:37.480 --> 41:41.560
 was to ask a physician, do you just not trust me?

41:41.560 --> 41:43.440
 You know, something like that.

41:43.440 --> 41:45.440
 They would get a very strange response back.

41:45.440 --> 41:52.200
 So I do think there's a little bit of a learning curve for figuring out how and when to ask

41:52.200 --> 41:53.600
 these kinds of questions.

41:53.600 --> 41:58.880
 And I think the advice I give people is be very careful about things like over disclosure

41:58.880 --> 42:03.720
 or asking about people's personal lives and context where they're not appropriate.

42:03.720 --> 42:08.200
 Specific feedback tends to be context-specific, it tends to not be inappropriate.

42:08.200 --> 42:12.800
 So the more that you can kind of tailor the question to the moment, the less likely you

42:12.800 --> 42:16.360
 are to kind of step into uncomfortable grounds.

42:16.360 --> 42:22.680
 Are there situations where you think leaping to conclusions about people could actually be

42:22.680 --> 42:23.680
 good for us?

42:23.680 --> 42:28.640
 I mean, there's some research that suggests that when people have, you know, overly optimistic

42:28.640 --> 42:33.560
 or positive views of their romantic partners, for example, they might end up in happier

42:33.560 --> 42:37.840
 relationships than people who have more realistic perspectives of their partners.

42:37.840 --> 42:40.440
 Are misattributions always a problem?

42:40.440 --> 42:43.280
 The question isn't, is accuracy good or bad?

42:43.280 --> 42:46.760
 It's what type of accuracy is good and bad and when?

42:46.760 --> 42:51.680
 And I think what we actually know there is that you want to have, you know, these global

42:51.680 --> 42:54.000
 positive judgments of your partner.

42:54.000 --> 42:57.200
 You think your partner is really attractive and fun and interesting.

42:57.200 --> 43:01.840
 If we call this the rose-colored glass, it's a fact, but you want specific accuracy.

43:01.840 --> 43:05.160
 So you want to be able to tell, for instance, that your partner is annoyed with you for not

43:05.160 --> 43:08.760
 emptying the dishwasher or that they're too tired to go to the movie tonight.

43:08.760 --> 43:10.320
 You can read those cues.

43:10.320 --> 43:14.360
 So the specific things you want to be accurate about, but at a global level, you actually

43:14.360 --> 43:16.600
 want to be overly biased in a positive way.

43:16.600 --> 43:24.280
 You want to see them more positively than others see that person.

43:24.280 --> 43:26.800
 I want to return to that interaction we spoke about earlier.

43:26.800 --> 43:33.000
 The one where your NYU colleague was abruptly dismissive of you and this was behavior that

43:33.000 --> 43:36.560
 you initially attributed to his feeling superior to you.

43:36.560 --> 43:41.800
 We're unexpectedly thrown together when you were asked to co-teach a professional development

43:41.800 --> 43:42.800
 course.

43:42.800 --> 43:46.720
 How did you get along, given your rocky start, Tessa?

43:46.720 --> 43:50.920
 You know, so Javian Bebel, who the story is about, he and I taught a professional development

43:50.920 --> 43:56.000
 course when after several years of not really interacting with each other, we both had to

43:56.000 --> 43:58.920
 kind of step in last minute and find a course to teach.

43:58.920 --> 44:02.040
 And I was like, oh, this is going to be awful.

44:02.040 --> 44:04.480
 This guy, he's such a social climber.

44:04.480 --> 44:06.960
 And I immediately realized that I was wrong.

44:06.960 --> 44:09.440
 My perceptions of him, my reading of him was wrong.

44:09.440 --> 44:15.800
 He was actually super friendly and super engaging and happy to engage with me with this course.

44:15.800 --> 44:18.840
 And we immediately became very close friends.

44:18.840 --> 44:24.680
 But I had hung on to those wrong perceptions for many years before that moment.

44:24.680 --> 44:28.400
 So you teach this course together and you get along famously.

44:28.400 --> 44:32.880
 And often, sometimes you realize that you actually like each other quite a bit and you might

44:32.880 --> 44:36.480
 feel that even something might be brewing between the two of you.

44:36.480 --> 44:40.560
 But your colleagues in the same department, so this is a high risk proposition.

44:40.560 --> 44:44.840
 I understand that the two of you sat down and had a heart to heart.

44:44.840 --> 44:46.520
 Can you tell me about that conversation?

44:46.520 --> 44:50.480
 How it went, what he said, and what you said in response?

44:50.480 --> 44:53.880
 You know, one thing I really learned in this experience is when you decide to date a

44:53.880 --> 44:58.280
 colleague whose office is two doors down from yours and you both have tenure at the same

44:58.280 --> 45:01.160
 institution and you're likely to stay there forever.

45:01.160 --> 45:04.560
 It behooves you to learn how to read each other accurately.

45:04.560 --> 45:09.320
 And I obviously didn't have a great history with him and when it came to person perception.

45:09.320 --> 45:15.760
 So we sat down together and he said, you know, is it just me or is there something going

45:15.760 --> 45:16.760
 on between us?

45:16.760 --> 45:18.120
 Is there feelings between us?

45:18.120 --> 45:21.240
 And I can remember seeing his hands shake.

45:21.240 --> 45:25.040
 He was kind of ringing his palms from the sweat and he was so uncomfortable.

45:25.040 --> 45:29.680
 But it was really critical for him to get this right and to not assume that, you know,

45:29.680 --> 45:32.440
 his colleague had feelings for him that I didn't have.

45:32.440 --> 45:37.000
 And so we had a very blatant conversation about explicit feelings for each other.

45:37.000 --> 45:40.640
 And I think that's a funny thing to do with someone that you're working with and you're

45:40.640 --> 45:45.520
 not dating to just have this very explicit, let me tell you exactly what I'm thinking in

45:45.520 --> 45:49.880
 feeling conversation over lunch and just hoping it doesn't completely blow up.

45:49.880 --> 45:52.560
 And it went well, but it was anxiety provoking.

45:52.560 --> 45:56.400
 I understand that you had both been married previously and you decided that you were going

45:56.400 --> 46:00.680
 to have a very candid conversation about what it meant to get into a relationship.

46:00.680 --> 46:02.880
 What kinds of things did you discuss, Tessa?

46:02.880 --> 46:08.720
 You know, we gave each other a list of 100 questions and we being scientists had this

46:08.720 --> 46:13.600
 kind of null hypothesis testing approach where we assumed we were not compatible and we

46:13.600 --> 46:16.360
 had to prove ourselves otherwise.

46:16.360 --> 46:20.120
 But, you know, we asked each other everything.

46:20.120 --> 46:21.520
 Nothing was off the table.

46:21.520 --> 46:24.200
 You know, what are your 401k plans?

46:24.200 --> 46:25.840
 Where do you like to go on vacation?

46:25.840 --> 46:27.360
 You know, we both had small children.

46:27.360 --> 46:29.160
 What are your parenting strategies?

46:29.160 --> 46:33.000
 How do you handle the following, you know, potential conflicts?

46:33.000 --> 46:35.320
 You know, what is your relationship like with your ex?

46:35.320 --> 46:38.920
 How are we going to communicate this to colleagues?

46:38.920 --> 46:44.160
 All the tough stuff, there was no stone left unturned where we wanted to prove to ourselves

46:44.160 --> 46:47.880
 that we were indeed compatible before we even started dating because the stakes were so

46:47.880 --> 46:48.880
 high.

46:48.880 --> 46:54.600
 So you had this very detailed, I don't know if the right word is conversation or interrogation.

46:54.600 --> 47:01.360
 But you had this very detailed interaction before you became romantically entangled.

47:01.360 --> 47:07.200
 Before we even held hands, you know, before even testing the chemistry part out, honestly.

47:07.200 --> 47:14.520
 But we had to, the accuracy in center was so high and we both were just very honest and

47:14.520 --> 47:18.840
 didn't lie and didn't say the thing we thought the other person wanted to hear because

47:18.840 --> 47:22.720
 if the relationship blew up, it would have been very bad for a lot of reasons.

47:22.720 --> 47:24.840
 It would have been miserable at work for 30 years.

47:24.840 --> 47:28.840
 I mean, in some ways it's a testament to what you've been describing in terms of the arc

47:28.840 --> 47:33.040
 of your research career, which is the value of actually being really explicit and really

47:33.040 --> 47:36.560
 specific and putting your cards on the table.

47:36.560 --> 47:42.080
 So what was the upshot of this very deliberate effort to have this conversation up front?

47:42.080 --> 47:44.040
 How did things go?

47:44.040 --> 47:46.880
 We had the conversation and now we're married.

47:46.880 --> 47:53.320
 So the upshot I think for us, aside from it being a success and our families really merging

47:53.320 --> 47:57.880
 well and us being very much in love, was that it set the stage for everything else in the

47:57.880 --> 47:58.880
 relationship.

47:58.880 --> 48:02.680
 So people often don't want to be good targets.

48:02.680 --> 48:06.960
 They don't want to be honest because they're afraid of what it's going to do the relationship.

48:06.960 --> 48:12.000
 They want to have positive perceptions of the partner so they don't ask negative things.

48:12.000 --> 48:16.040
 But we got all of that off the table from the get go and we're extremely honest with each

48:16.040 --> 48:17.040
 other.

48:17.040 --> 48:21.360
 And you know, full disclosure, I talked to Jay, it length about this before I discussed

48:21.360 --> 48:23.520
 it with you just to make sure he was comfortable.

48:23.520 --> 48:26.320
 So we're always just keeping each other in the loop.

48:26.320 --> 48:29.680
 And you know, the other thing I know is I'm not a great person perceiver and neither is

48:29.680 --> 48:30.680
 he.

48:30.680 --> 48:34.360
 But I know how to be a good target and I know how to elicit that information from other

48:34.360 --> 48:35.360
 people.

48:35.360 --> 48:42.360
 And I think that really has an upside in relationships.

48:42.360 --> 48:46.080
 Tessa West is a psychologist at NYU.

48:46.080 --> 48:51.720
 She's also the author of the book Jerks at Work, toxic co-workers and what to do about

48:51.720 --> 48:52.720
 them.

48:52.720 --> 48:56.400
 Tessa, thank you so much for joining me today on Hidden Brain.

48:56.400 --> 49:01.800
 Thank you so much.

49:01.800 --> 49:05.080
 Hidden Brain is produced by Hidden Brain Media.

49:05.080 --> 49:10.640
 Our audio production team includes Bridget McCarthy, Annie Murphy-Paul, Kristen Wong, Laura

49:10.640 --> 49:15.480
 Quarelle, Ryan Katz, Autumn Barnes, and Andrew Chadwick.

49:15.480 --> 49:18.120
 Tara Boyle is our executive producer.

49:18.120 --> 49:22.200
 I'm Hidden Brain's executive editor.

49:22.200 --> 49:26.280
 For today's UnSung Hero, we turn the mic over to you, our listeners.

49:26.280 --> 49:30.040
 It's a story from our show, My UnSung Hero.

49:30.040 --> 49:34.240
 Today's My UnSung Hero is brought to you by Unstar.

49:34.240 --> 49:40.400
 Unstar advisors are now with you everywhere, on the app, in your car and at home.

49:40.400 --> 49:43.320
 Unstar, be safe out there.

49:43.320 --> 49:46.080
 Our story comes from Joe Arigone.

49:46.080 --> 49:49.600
 Joe and Joni have been married for more than 30 years.

49:49.600 --> 49:53.480
 Three of their four kids are out of the house, and they are always imagined spending this

49:53.480 --> 49:57.880
 phase of life working and planning for retirement.

49:57.880 --> 50:03.640
 But all that changed at the end of 2018, when Joni was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's

50:03.640 --> 50:05.400
 at just 51.

50:05.400 --> 50:07.680
 Her condition has been devastating.

50:07.680 --> 50:12.680
 For Joe, it has tested the limits of his compassion and understanding.

50:12.680 --> 50:15.640
 He remembers one morning that was especially frustrating.

50:15.640 --> 50:17.920
 It was in March of 2022.

50:17.920 --> 50:22.760
 Joni was insisting that she needed new shoes, even though she did not need them.

50:22.760 --> 50:27.400
 So after he got tired of arguing about it with her, he agreed to take her to the shoe

50:27.400 --> 50:28.400
 store.

50:28.400 --> 50:31.240
 And I'm like, okay, here's all the shoes here.

50:31.240 --> 50:33.160
 There's, you know, aisles and aisles of shoes.

50:33.160 --> 50:38.200
 Which ones do you like, is there a particular color or a particular brand?

50:38.200 --> 50:41.200
 And I don't think she really understood.

50:41.200 --> 50:45.600
 And she goes, I want to talk to an associate.

50:45.600 --> 50:48.040
 And so I'm like, oh, right, fine.

50:48.040 --> 50:50.080
 You just go find an associate.

50:50.080 --> 50:58.840
 I'm just going to sit down over here because this whole knee that you have for shoes, I

50:58.840 --> 51:01.280
 just need a break from it.

51:01.280 --> 51:05.920
 So she starts wandering off and going around the store.

51:05.920 --> 51:08.680
 I don't see her then for a while.

51:08.680 --> 51:12.000
 And I finally hear her voice.

51:12.000 --> 51:17.560
 And she's talking to the salesperson that she found.

51:17.560 --> 51:23.120
 And I peek around the corner and I see them engage in this conversation.

51:23.120 --> 51:31.240
 And the saleswoman, Michelle, is trying to figure out what size of shoe Joni needs.

51:31.240 --> 51:40.560
 She's gently helping to get, you know, the shoe off her foot and then asks her to place

51:40.560 --> 51:46.440
 her foot in the little metal slide that they use to get the width and the size.

51:46.440 --> 51:54.040
 And because my wife has a hard time following directions because of her illness, she puts

51:54.040 --> 51:59.720
 her hand down on the measuring tool for feet.

51:59.720 --> 52:03.000
 And Michelle says, that's okay.

52:03.000 --> 52:05.120
 Don't worry.

52:05.120 --> 52:11.280
 Why don't you just stand up and I'll put the tool underneath and we'll measure your foot

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 that way.

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 And Michelle asks her, do you have some anxiety?

52:17.640 --> 52:21.480
 She says, because I have some anxiety.

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 And I also have autism.

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 And when I heard that, it just broke my heart because here I couldn't generate the patience

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 and the compassion.

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 And here this was the salesperson who my expectation was that, you know, they're not going to be

52:48.480 --> 52:49.800
 able to understand Joni.

52:49.800 --> 52:52.280
 They're not going to be able to engage with Joni.

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 And I'm going to have to step in and do everything anyway.

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 And they had just created this beautiful moment and it still jokes me up a little bit.

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 When you're a full-time caregiver 24-7, sometimes I can take a toll on you and your level

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 of compassion or hope can get depleted.

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 And so you can be just desperate for some type of relief from that responsibility.

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 And when someone who themselves already has difficulty navigating our world is caring

53:46.480 --> 53:51.080
 for your loved one with more patience and compassion than you can bust her at that

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 moment.

53:53.400 --> 53:54.960
 It's doubly impactful.

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 It's beyond words.

53:58.040 --> 54:07.320
 And it's a beautiful thing.

54:07.320 --> 54:10.880
 Joe Arragonne of Orland Hills, Illinois.

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 By the way, they did find Joni a pair of shoes and Joe was able to go back into the store

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 and tell Michelle, thank you.

54:18.920 --> 54:21.800
 This segment was brought to you by OnStar.

54:21.800 --> 54:26.160
 OnStar believes everyone has the right to feel safe everywhere.

54:26.160 --> 54:30.880
 That's why their emergency advisors are now available to help not only in the car, but

54:30.880 --> 54:32.360
 wherever you are.

54:32.360 --> 54:35.880
 On your phone, in your car, and at home.

54:35.880 --> 54:39.160
 OnStar, be safe out there.

54:39.160 --> 54:42.960
 If you liked this episode and would like us to produce more shows like this, please

54:42.960 --> 54:45.000
 consider supporting our work.

54:45.000 --> 54:47.840
 Go to support.hiddenbrain.org.

54:47.840 --> 54:54.840
 I'm Shankar Vedantam.

54:54.840 --> 55:22.840
 See you soon.