0:04 There's a fundamental paradox right at the core of human life.
0:07 On the one hand,
0:08 decades of research have shown
0:10 that we are highly social creatures who are made happier
0:12 and healthier by reaching out
0:14 and connecting with other people in the moments,
0:16 the days, the weeks, the months and the years of our lives.
0:21 And yet, on the other hand, just look around a little bit.
0:25 It's not clear that all of us have gotten this memo.
0:28 Every day there are opportunities, big and small,
0:30 to reach out and connect with other people that we choose not to take.
0:35 We avoid talking to strangers.
0:37 We lean back and type to each other rather than leaning in
0:39 and talking to each other.
0:41 Once talking, we stick to shallow talk, to small talk, rather than going deeper.
0:45 We feel grateful but don’t express it. want to reach out to offer support
0:49 to someone in need
0:50 but hold back.
0:51 We’d like to be open and honest in our relationships,
0:53 but all too often keep our true selves to ourselves.
0:57 If being socially connected is so darn good for us,
1:00 then why do we so often seem to be so darn unsocial?
1:04 This paradox hit me like a freight train one morning
1:07 while I was on an actual train,
1:09 commuting into my office at the University of Chicago,
1:11 where I work as a professor of behavioral science.
1:14 That morning on the train began like every other I'd been on for years
1:18 beforehand -- all filing onto the train,
1:20 everybody in a desperate search for their own little acreage of solitude right along
1:24 the window.
1:25 I think we'd have sat outside the train if that was possible.
1:29 (Laughter) Heaven forbid you’d sit next to somebody
1:31 and start a chitchat -- of course,
1:33 you creep.
1:33 Or worse yet, somebody would come
1:34 and sit down next to you -- surely some kind of weirdo.
1:38 But then there we all were.
1:39 Highly social creatures, made happier and healthier by connecting with other people,
1:44 now sitting hip-to-hip with another perfectly reasonable human being.
1:47 And what did we do for the next 30 to 45 minutes with each
1:51 other?
1:55 (Laughter) We chose to ignore each other.
1:57 You could have heard a pin drop that morning.
2:00 That morning, a woman,
2:01 who was about 15 to 20 years older than I was at the time,
2:04 sat down next to me, dressed professionally for work and wearing just this fabulous,
2:09 killer, stylish red hat.
2:11 I'm never going to forget this red hat.
2:14 I put other people in experiments for a living,
2:16 but this morning I decided to put myself in an experiment
2:18 and pay close attention to what happened.
2:20 Instead of keeping to myself and doomscrolling on my phone or checking my email,
2:24 I'd try to have a conversation with her,
2:25 try to help us get to know each other a little bit.
2:28 Turn this 30-minute dull ride into something a little more interesting.
2:30 Turn a stranger into a momentary acquaintance.
2:35 The second I had that thought about that experiment,
2:37 my brain started screaming at me all the reasons why this was a really,
2:41 really bad idea.
2:43 "Clearly, she doesn't want to talk to you,
2:44 otherwise she'd already be talking to you.
2:45 She's going to think you're some kind of creep.
2:47 You probably don't even have anything in common with her,
2:49 and you’ve got nothing to even start with, smarty pants.”
2:55 Nevertheless, I decided the experiment must continue,
2:57 so I ignored that part of my brain.
2:59 I turned to her and I said, "Hi, my name is Nick.
3:03 I love your hat.
3:05 I have one just like it."
3:08 (Laughter) Yeah, huh?
3:11 (Laughter) Now look, I know that’s not going to make its way into the
3:14 conversation-starter Hall of Fame,
3:15 but it didn't seem to matter.
3:17 She turned to me, a big smile,
3:18 her face all lit up -- she looked like a different person.
3:22 And from there, the conversation just flowed really easily. found things
3:26 that we had in common,
3:26 we talked about our families, our work,
3:27 our hope for the future. 30-minute train ride just went like that.
3:31 I was done, and I got up to leave,
3:33 and she stopped me and she said,
3:35 "Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me this morning."
3:40 I've forgotten a lot of details about how that conversation actually went,
3:44 but I've never forgotten how that conversation made me feel.
3:47 Not just good, but surprisingly good.
3:50 The contrast between my beliefs about how
3:52 that would go and how it actually went was pretty sizable.
3:57 And there... in that gap was a potential resolution to this paradox.
4:03 Social connection, after all, isn't something that just happens to us.
4:06 It's a choice we make.
4:08 It's a choice we make at times to reach out and approach other people,
4:10 to engage with them, or to hold back and avoid them.
4:13 It might, in fact, arguably be the choice we make,
4:16 the most important choice we make,
4:18 because how we make
4:19 that choice over and over
4:20 and over again in our lives
4:21 so routinely determines so much about our happiness,
4:24 our health and our success in life.
4:27 But highly social creatures like us might avoid reaching out
4:31 and engaging with other people mistakenly
4:33 if we underestimate just how positively our attempts to connect might turn out.
4:39 That morning changed both my career and my character.
4:44 In my career, my wonderful collaborators
4:48 and I have now conducted well over 100 experiments with over 30,000 people of
4:53 all ages and nationalities,
4:55 and found that my tendency to be overly pessimistic is not unique to me.
4:59 It's something we see over
5:00 and over again in varying shades
5:02 and magnitudes across different contexts
5:03 that vary a little bit across people --
5:05 but that consistent signal is there.
5:08 In one of our very first experiments,
5:09 we went back to a train station on the line
5:11 that I ride into work every day,
5:13 and we recruited a group of commuters,
5:15 and we asked them to predict how they would feel on the train
5:18 that morning if they kept to themselves in solitude,
5:21 or if they turned to the person who sat next to them
5:23 that morning and tried to have a conversation,
5:25 tried to connect.
5:26 The results here were crystal clear:
5:28 people thought talking to a stranger was a really bad idea.
5:30 They thought they would have a more pleasant experience
5:32 that left them feeling happier
5:33 if they kept to themselves in solitude,
5:35 than if they turned to the stranger to connect with them on the train.
5:40 But when we recruited another sample of people
5:43 and actually randomly assigned them in an experiment to either keep to themselves in
5:47 solitude or to try to connect with a person sitting next to them --
5:51 rather than just imagine it,
5:52 to actually do it -- we found exactly the opposite results.
5:56 The people we had instructed randomly to keep to themselves
5:59 that morning reported having a less pleasant
6:02 and happy commute than those we asked to connect with the person sitting next
6:05 to them.
6:06 People’s beliefs about social interaction here weren’t just wrong -- they were precisely backward.
6:10 But notice that if you believe that talking with a stranger would suck,
6:14 you wouldn't try it,
6:15 and then you'd never find out that you might be wrong about that.
6:20 Pessimistic beliefs in that way are self-fulfilling.
6:24 This little experiment was just the tip of a very large iceberg
6:28 that came into view for us in many ensuing years.
6:30 We've now seen this tendency to be overly pessimistic over
6:33 and over and over again.
6:35 We’ve now had more than 4,500 people not just have conversations with a stranger,
6:40 but to have deep conversations with a stranger and talk about things like,
6:44 "Can you tell me what you're most grateful for in your life?"
6:47 Or "Can you tell me about one of the last times you cried in
6:50 front of another person?"
6:52 So when I show people these questions in these experiments,
6:55 I can feel a sense of dread spreading over the room
6:57 when I put these questions up on the board,
6:59 people start eyeing the exits -- wishing they hadn't come to this session today.
7:03 But then when I actually put them into the experiments, in the conversation,
7:06 the trouble I have is getting them to come back.
7:07 These conversations go much better than people expect that they will.
7:07 This is also true
7:07 when we have people who disagree about the most divisive political issues
7:07 that divide us today talk about those political disagreements -- even those political disagreements,
7:07 go better than people expect them to.
7:07 We find in our research
7:07 that we have tremendous power to create meaningful social connection every day of our
7:07 lives.
7:07 But if we underestimate how positively our efforts to reach out
7:07 and connect with someone will go,
7:07 we won't use that power that we have.
7:07 We see this tendency for misplaced pessimism also showing up beyond conversation.
7:08 When we ask people to think of a compliment they could give to their
7:08 friend and then actually deliver
7:08 that compliment to their friend,
7:08 they leave their friend feeling more uplifted than the complimenters imagined they would.
7:08 When we ask people to express their gratitude to someone they love,
7:08 they leave their recipients feeling even better than the expressers predict they would.
7:08 Performing random acts of kindness, reaching out and asking for help,
7:08 expressing support to someone in need,
7:08 being open and honest in our relationships all tend to be received, on average,
7:08 more favorably, more positively by the people we're reaching out to than the people
7:08 who are reaching out expected to.
7:08 How much more time would you spend reaching out to lift somebody up
7:08 if you knew just how much good in
7:08 that moment you could actually do?
7:08 No research I've ever been involved with has changed the way I live my
7:08 life more than this.
7:08 My train rides are almost never silent anymore.
7:08 I met amazing people on planes and in cabs.
7:08 Even just walking around town is more pleasant for me,
7:09 whether I’m on campus or work or in a grocery store,
7:09 because I’ve made a habit of walking around with my head up smiling
7:09 and saying hello to other people,
7:09 and I get, in return,
7:09 a lot more smiles and hellos when I'm walking around.
7:09 When I feel grateful, I write a note and send it off.
7:09 When I need help, I’m less reluctant to ask for it.
7:09 When I know someone needs some support,
7:09 I’m not as embarrassed to reach out
7:09 and offer it -- even
7:09 if there's nothing I can do in
7:09 that moment.
7:09 It's made me a more open, friendlier person and as a result,
7:09 changed all of my relationships.
7:09 I've turned countless strangers into friends
7:09 or into acquaintances at least -- even
7:09 if just for a moment.
7:09 My friendships are better.
7:09 I think my marriage is stronger.
7:09 I think I'm a better father.
7:11 These changes didn't happen to me overnight.
7:11 They happened, of course, slowly, over time.
7:11 Just like you move a mountain -- not by pushing it all at once,
7:11 but one shovelful at a time.
7:11 The way you change how you approach other people happens slowly, over time.
7:11 One choice after another.
7:11 One small choice, as you learn where your mistaken beliefs about other people might
7:11 be holding you back needlessly.
7:11 And then you develop habits
7:11 that then become part of your character
7:11 and part of who you are.
7:11 Overcoming my misplaced pessimism, though,
7:11 has also affected how I've made some big choices
7:11 that I have been a part of in my life,
7:11 including when pain struck my family.
7:11 So 10 years ago,
7:11 my wife Jen was three months into her pregnancy
7:11 when we learned that our daughter,
7:11 who we had already named Sophie, had Down syndrome.
7:11 And three months after that,
7:11 we learned that our daughter had died before she could be born.
7:11 Losing our daughter was horrible.
7:11 It was absolutely horrible.
7:11 And we mourned that loss for many months,
7:11 until one morning Jen and I were talking and she asked whether we could,
7:11 whether we should, whether we might consider adopting a child with Down syndrome.
7:11 And there it was, the choice.
7:11 Do you reach out and connect with someone?
7:11 Do you engage with them, do you approach,
7:11 or do you hold back and avoid it?
7:11 Jen and I had already adopted two children into our family,
7:11 and so we had some sense of how this might go.
7:11 Nevertheless, this choice caught me off guard.
7:11 I wasn't there at that moment.
7:11 My mind wasn't there yet.
7:11 And so I had all the pessimistic fears
7:11 that you might have
7:11 when you think about connecting with a stranger,
7:11 or having a deep conversation with someone, except multiplied by 100 or 1,000.
7:11 How well would this go?
7:11 Would we be able to handle this?
7:11 Would we be able to connect, to love,
7:11 to parent the stranger we were bringing into our lives with all of these
7:11 challenges that seemed to me at the time very hard
7:11 and difficult.
7:11 How would this child respond to us?
7:11 My first thought was, I don't think we can do this.
7:11 I'm not sure I can do this.
7:11 But my second thought then started turning to my data,
7:11 as researchers will tell you, can happen.
7:11 And I started thinking about thousands and thousands of data points,
7:11 of people underestimating the joys they would experience
7:14 when they reach out to engage with,
7:14 to connect with, to pull someone else close to them.
7:14 And it gave me data-driven courage that, yeah, we can do this together.
7:15 I happened to marry a superhero, too.
7:15 We can do this together.
7:15 And it won't just be good.
7:15 I bet it'll be surprisingly good.
7:15 And so about a year after that,
7:15 Jen and I boarded a flight to China with our four other children,
7:15 where we were going to meet Lindsey, two years old,
7:15 born to a woman we will never meet,
7:15 with big dark eyes and just a relentless smile, despite a really,
7:15 really hard start in her life.
7:15 We reached out to Lindsey and Lindsey reached back to us.
7:15 She's been bringing love and smiles like that into our lives for years since.
7:15 Now I want to be clear,
7:15 raising a child with an intellectual disability is hard.
7:15 It's really hard.
7:15 Lindsey is not just one handful.
7:15 She is both arms completely full.
7:15 (Laughter) But she's also enriched
7:15 and blessed our lives
7:15 so far beyond what my pessimistic expectations beforehand ever possibly could have imagined.
7:16 Connecting with other people is one of the most consistently enjoyable,
7:17 enlightening and enriching experiences we'll ever have.
7:17 And yet, all too often,
7:17 our choice to reach out
7:17 and connect with somebody is thwarted by overly pessimistic fears about how other people
7:17 might respond.
7:17 Being overly pessimistic doesn't mean we should reach out all the time,
7:17 or that it always turns out well; of course not.
7:19 It means we tend to underestimate the likelihood that it will turn out well,
7:19 and as a result, we tend to hold ourselves back a little too often.
7:19 I've found in my life
7:19 and in my research
7:19 that testing some of those beliefs
7:19 that hold us back can reveal places where we're making mistakes about other people
7:21 and show us how to reach out,
7:21 empower us to reach out a little bit more often than we might otherwise,
7:21 to make both our own lives
7:21 and those we reach out to a little bit better.
7:21 You want to change your life for the better?
7:21 I suggest keeping some data-driven courage in mind.
7:21 And when in doubt, reach out.
7:21 Thank you so much.
7:21 (Applause)
