Adam Grant Gives Trevor An Intellectual Wedgie [VIDEO]

That's the only way I get back into like sort of shape is I have to put weights next to my bed.

That's literally what I'll do.

Do you go to sleep in your gym clothes too?

No, no, no, no.

This is actually a myth.

You don't need gym clothes to work out.

This is a complete fallacy.

You can do it naked.

It works just as well.

In fact, it makes me feel like I'm like in like ancient Greece or something.

Yeah, there's like a moment where you lift a weight above your head and you're completely naked and you're just like, yes, I am Spartacus. This is What Now? With Trevor Noah.
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It's fun having you. Welcome to the podcast.

I'm excited to be here. Yeah, man.
I'm really happy

to have you here because I

love how you think, but then I also love

the science behind how

you think. Some people know your books

or your TED Talks, but what I've

noticed is some people know you as

Let's go. I love how you think, but then I also love the science behind how you think.
Some people know your books or your TED Talks, but what I've noticed is some people know you as, like they think of you as a researcher. They go, that's what that guy does.
And then some people think of you as really a social scientist and a psychologist and somebody who looks at human interactions. How would you define what you actually do? I mean, I guess I'd say I'm an organizational psychologist.
Okay. And I'm interested in how we can improve the quality of our lives at work and beyond.
Is it just like business organizations or any? How big does an organization get before it's no longer an organization? I think if it's fewer than two people, it's definitely not an organization. So it's the Lord's rules, basically.
Maybe. Yeah.
Because he said that as well. He said, what, when three or more gathered in my name, then I'm in their presence.
I'm going to take your word for it. Yeah, well, it's the Lord's word.
I haven't had any conversations with the Lord. It's in the Bible.
That's one of my favorite lines in the Bible. I like that the Lord is like, look, man, there's like two of you.
You should probably go to church. If there's three of you, I'll come to you.
Fascinating. I didn't know there was a biblical theory of team size or gathering.
Actually, maybe then let me start with asking you that. Is there a science behind the number of people who come together, then increasing their ability to connect with something more powerful or spiritual? Well, thinking out loud, there are a couple of things that come to mind.
The first one is, I'm thinking of Durkheim, the founding father of sociology, who wrote about collective effervescence, which is a lot of syllables for the feeling of energy and purpose that you have when you come together in a group for something larger than yourself. Say that again? The feeling of? Energy and purpose.
That you have when coming together collectively in a group. Yeah.
For the same reason, though. Yes, with a common a common goal oh i like this wait is this so is this the same as like roman soldiers being able to march further when they were marching together possibly okay and do we know why that is i think we know we know a little bit there's there's actually a hilarious experiment where people had to sing oh canada uh either in unison or not and then they ended up cooperating more afterward if they had been in tune together.
Oh man, now, then it seems like national anthems have a purpose in a weird way. They might.
Like beyond just, I thought it was just like a love song to the country. Well, I mean, I think you made the case that Sweet Caroline is better than our national anthem at bringing people together.
I think it is. That was hysterical, by the way.
Thank you very much. I think it's one of the greatest.
I actually think that's what we should do. I think every country should change its national anthem every few years just to keep it fresh and keep up with the times and the vibes.
You know what I mean? And then, yeah, Sweet Caroline could have been a national anthem, I think, for a while. How would you choose? You just see what people like it's like how do they choose the charts that's this would be so much fun yeah i mean we just listen to the music and then we go like all right hey new national anthem you know it's like all right taylor swift has a great one and then beyonce has another great one and then we just like go down a list and we choose like amazing songs sometimes you unearth them from way back in the day you know what i love about this is then you would get people a little bit more comfortable with changing old traditions.
And then it wouldn't be a far cry to say, we should have a new constitutional convention. Damn, you just took it there.
I mean, I don't touch the constitution. Let me tell you something now, Adam Grant.
I want you to know you don't bring that to my podcast. The constitution is the way the Constitution was and it always will be.
All right. Anyone else who's watching this, you know that I believe in the Constitution and it stays the way it should, especially all those amendments.
You don't change those amendments. How dare you? You're a big fan of change.
I mean, I think that the world changes and we have a choice about whether we want to evolve with it or whether we want to become obsolete. Okay.
So let's try climb this mountain together. Somebody who is pro-change is how I assume you are, you know, from reading you, listening to you, et cetera.
Depends on the change. Okay.
Okay. Okay.
So then let's start with that. When do you or when do you think someone should change their mind? Because I'm like, I always go like, you should always be willing to change.
And for me personally, as Trevor, I go, I always assume that I could be wrong. It doesn't matter what it is.
I just always assume that I could be wrong. And then I go from there.
Including about that? Yeah. Okay.
I think that change is not always good, right? We have to be clear about that. Sometimes it backfires.
Sometimes it has unintended consequences. We're living with a lot of them right now.
And your show is about that in some ways. Right, yeah.
I think the reasons for change are really important. So a lot of people change to gain social approval.
Oh, plonks. Oh, wow.
Well, I saw that coming and I couldn't jump quick enough. Sorry, but well, it's...
And it's right out of shot. But it's out of shot.
Sorry. That's hilarious.
You're going to just have to leave it for now, I guess. Can you deal with this change? You guys are running with this metaphor here.
It's, uh... Not all change is good.
That's what you were saying, right? I don't know. Maybe that plan needed to go.
I didn't know you bring props to your interviews. You brought the prop.
That's really well played. Thank you.
So going back. No, no.
So going back. Why do you change? Yeah.
Why do you change? Or when do you know that you should change? I think for me, the starting point is to say most people base what they want to change and what they want to keep constant on their identity. And their identity is a set of beliefs about what's true.
I think that's a mistake. I think who you are is not a question of what you believe.
It's a question of what you value. So not what are your truths, but rather what are your principles? What are your truths? What are you? Wait, wait, forgive me.
It sounds sounds like the same thing help me break it down so um let's uh let's let's actually let's talk about you trevor yeah let's talk about one of your core beliefs give me a policy that you think is necessary or effective that is necessary or effective or effective or that we should have that we don't goodness okay the way taxes um are doled out for people's education in America, for children's education, I don't think should be by zip code. I think somebody should try and find an algorithm or like a system that basically just breaks it up equally and every school gets the same money.
Because otherwise people have created little enclaves where the money ends up. And so even though it's a public school and everyone's proud of that, oh, my child goes to a public school, you've made it a private school by locking it into the zip code where the school accepts people from.
Do you know what I mean? So for me, that policy, I would change. I would go, no, we find a system where the money all comes together and then it just gets like sprayed out equally.
And then every school is getting the same amount of resources as opposed to schools getting money based on who's the richest people who live near it. Okay, good.
So you have a belief that equal distribution of resources to schools is a good idea. Yes, I think it's a better idea than what it is now.
Now, what's the value behind that? Why do you want to do that? I don't even think about people being smarter. I don't even think.
I just think if everybody has access to a thing, then they're more likely to be in sync with each other because in a way we've given them all access to O Canada as an education system. And so they're more likely to feel like they are together when they go out into the world.
Okay. So the value you're describing is community, solidarity, belonging.
That's your value. Okay.
Now your belief is you have a particular way of getting us there. Yes.
That might or might not be true. That is true.
And so if you stay open to questioning the belief, you're interested in whatever is the best policy to serve your value. Oh, and that allows you to learn and change.
Okay. But don't change the value.
No, no, this makes a lot of sense because I should be open to the idea that equally distributing the thing is wrong. Yeah, exactly.
But I still wish to create a society where people are generous and connected and living in a community. Nailed it.
Look at that. I like this.
You should teach. I mean, maybe I will.
You should go to a university and be a professor or something. I might need a recommendation from you.
I'll be like, can I get a Trevor reference for that job? You know, so I've always wondered this about you. When you have this much data in your head and this much science, does it make it harder to move through the world with people who are operating completely from like a, like, I don't want to say flawed, but what's the biggest thing that, what's like your pet peeve when you talk to people? Astrology.
Hmm. Astrology, you don't believe in astrology? I mean, technically, I shouldn't believe or disbelieve, right? I have a set of values.
You don't, wow. Around scientific inquiry, and I think the science casts a lot of doubt on it.
Okay, look, okay, I'm skeptical of astrology, right? But I'm a Pisces, so that's my nature. Do you know skeptical of astrology right but i'm a pisces so that's my nature do you know what i mean but i'm saying like you okay so let's let's get are you really a pisces yeah i really am do you think that has any meaning um okay so this is this is the thing do i believe in astrology no i i have this romantic idea that there is a possibility that something did affect people but i don't necessarily know what it is maybe it's january people maybe we're like giving it star signs but i keep thinking like maybe if you're born at the end of the year you have a different vibe because like you're born around like end of the year like people have a different vibe at the end of the year right and maybe you live a different life because you know i think like malcolm gladwell did like some of that work is like you also get into the schooling system at a different time so maybe you act different you feel different you are different so maybe our star signs are just like a woo woo way of tapping into something that might be scientific now do i believe it tells you what's going to happen in the next month no i don't but i go like oh there's something here so interesting to hear you talk it.
So I think you're talking about it like a scientist would. And what drives me crazy about people's stances on astrology is they come in as preachers, not scientists.
Okay. So what separates a preacher from a scientist? So a preacher is basically proselytizing their existing views.
And a scientist is to find the truth not spread it okay so wait i've heard you talk a little bit about this before let's let's break down some so there's preachers they are politicians and then there is prosecutors prosecutors okay okay okay so preachers you're going out there you're basically saying this is what i believe in and everyone should believe in it with me. Yes.
Okay, politicians? In politician mode, basically you're saying, I'm not even going to bother to listen to you unless you already agree with what I think. Oh, damn.
Okay. And then prosecutor? Prosecutor is my biggest problem.
So this is what happens whenever someone tries to give me a horoscope is I start to just smack it down with data. Oh, you like you're a problem.
You have a problem being a prosecutor. Huge problem.
I've been called a logic bully, Trevor. And you think that's funny.
My wife had to explain that's not a compliment. Oh, yeah.
No, I know it's not a compliment. I think it's hilarious.
What do you mean? People don't want to be hammered with facts and studies. Oh, man, I love this.
Have you gotten gotten better at this are you able to like hold yourself when somebody sometimes sometimes sometimes i mean i i met i talked to somebody the other day yes who was interested in exploring ideas yeah finding out what's true okay not preaching or yes yes yes and you know i gotta like well what's what's your sign like i need to know your sign to understand you. And I just launched into a huge rant.
I couldn't resist. That's hilarious.
Wait, okay, wait. So now let me ask you this.
As an organizational psychologist, as somebody who studies people, that is an instance that a lot of people might be able to laugh at and go, man, this is funny. That's hilarious.
I can't believe that happened, et cetera. But I feel like in the world we're living in today, as people are getting more access to a more, what I would call like a niche existence, it's your for you feed, it's your algorithm, it's your way of seeing the world.
Is there any science or is there a proven way to bridge the gap between yourself and somebody else? Especially let's start with people you care about. Someone you care about who holds a view that you, as you said, would make you launch a rant against them.
Like you go like, I cannot believe you hold this view knowing you as a human being the way I thought I did. So ideally, what you start with is you say, okay, I'm feeling the strong temptation to preach and prosecute.
And I want to think more like a scientist here. Don't let your ideas become your identity.
Okay. So a good scientist would have the humility to know what they don't know and the curiosity to keep seeking new knowledge.
Okay. And the way you start doing that is you say, huh, what an interesting specimen.
I mean, don't say that out loud. But I think that.
I was like, okay, this is not going to help build your friendships. No, but the more somebody holds a different opinion, the less you understand about how they think, even if you're offended by what they think.
And that means you have to want to know more. So you've got a couple options.
I think the first one is to just establish that two reasonable, intelligent people can actually disagree and that's okay. A second is what I love to do is I love to ask and this is when I remember to do it, it leads to a much better conversation.
Like, okay, Trevor, so you called yourself a Pisces. That's so interesting to me that you would put any stock in something that I think has no evidence behind it.
What evidence would change your mind? Hmm. And then what happens? What follows? Well, usually people start to map out, well, this is the kind of study I would need to see.
And then they're on my turf. Oh, damn.
So you're out here laying logic traps. A little bit.
The logic bully has turned into the logic hunter.

He's like, Adam's out in the, you're out in the forest, like laying out logic traps.

The traps are better than the bullying.

Let's play this game out now. Let's try this again in a benign topic.

Let's go with astrology.

And I'm saying this to you, and I mean this completely, honestly.

I do not believe in it.

However, what would you need from me to accept that astrology might have some merit the first thing i would want you to do is is to read the science that has convinced me that it doesn't have any merit so okay i would say let's let's just throw out a few simple data points and i'm going to try really hard not to logic bully here no no go go go you can't bully me because i'm asking for it. If I say pull my underwear, then I'm now a willing participant.
There's no bullying here. This is just two consenting adults, one pulling the other one's underwear up out of their pants.
Fair. So please, logic wedgie me.
Intellectual wedgie. Here we come.
Okay. So there's a psychology piece and then there's an astrophysics piece.
Where do you want to go first? Okay. Let's go psychology first.
Okay, so psychology first. So there's a huge study led by Jackson Liu at MIT.
It's over 160,000 people where you get their astrological sign. Okay.
And then you also have them fill out a long personality questionnaire. And it turns out there is literally a zero correlation between any of the signs and any personality trait that you can think of.
Wow. Zero? Zero.
Like on a one to seven scale, like Capricorns and Pisces would come out 5.62 versus 5.63 on how agreeable and friendly they are. And every trait and every sign goes like that.
Zero. Zero.
This is devastating. Here's the thing.
When you share this evidence with astrology fans, what they do is they say, well, I need your whole natal chart because it's not enough to just know your zodiac. Which is true because I mean, the moon also affects and where was Venus? Where was Venus? This is a very key question.
Not in the picture, clearly. But that's where you then start to go to astrophysics.
And I'm not an astrophysicist, right? So I should be careful here. It's pretty clear that the gravitational force that the sun, the moon, and the stars exert on us is so infinitesimally small that it would almost be impossible to measure it.
The force of any celestial objects on your body is smaller than the force your own pillow exerts when you go to sleep at night. Damn.
And you said you're a Pisces, Trevor? Yeah. Turns out because of the Earth's wobble, you're not even the sign that you think you are, which hasn't been accounted for in the last couple thousand years.
I'm sorry. Say that again? The Earth wobbles.
Because the Earth has wobbled, people aren't the star sign that they are. That they think they are.
How much has it moved by? I think, I don't actually know.

This is not my expertise.

I think you might be one sign off.

I knew it.

I'm an Aquarius.

I could feel, you know what?

I felt a change a few years ago

and I was like, but I'm Pisces.

This makes a lot of sense.

Clearly.

You've just helped me use the science

to get back into astrology.

No!

No! We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break do you think it's more important to be right or do you think it's more important to get along with other people ideally for me a healthy relationship is one in which people recognize great minds do not think alike. They challenge each other to think again.
And if we can't question each other and we can't disagree, then we actually don't have a lot of respect for each other. Oh, that's interesting.
Like I don't respect your ability to learn and your willingness to consider different views if I'm not open to putting something out there that you might object to. You know, it's funny.
In one of the episodes, we had Gerard Carmichael on, and we're talking about his TV show and how he came out as gay, and he'd been struggling to get his family to accept him as an openly gay man. And one of the things we disagreed on, we're still friends, but one of the things we disagreed on is how he went about it so he went slamming it in their face showing my mom this is my boyfriend showing my dad like pics of my boyfriend in his underwear and you know what i mean now personally personally as trevor i don't agree with that and i get where gerard's coming from and he, this is the only way I could get my family to change.
He knows his family better than I do. So I go like, all right, I'll defer to you.
But the thing I said to him was, I find, I'm not a scientist, nor am I a psychologist, but I find one of the biggest things that hurts us in society today is that we, it's sort of like we, how can I i put it if we spend all our time butting up against the thing that that that we disagree on i was i almost feel like we form a callous with each other as human beings and then that becomes the thing that we meet on every single time well well if it isn't mr pisces ah if't Mr. Science.
And now I no longer see you as Adam. And so I sometimes wonder, and maybe you've got something to back this up, or maybe I'm wrong.
I sometimes wonder if the key to bridging those divides is not by hitting them head on, but it's by fortifying the other parts of our connection that make us more likely to trust each other in the parts where we don't get along. Does this make sense? It makes a ton of sense.
This is fascinating. Okay, so I have a couple of reactions.
First one is a callus protects your hands. Okay.
So it's a buildup of, I don't even, what is it? I guess it's just skin that dies and I don't know. I'm not a anything, but yeah.
But it prevents you from bleeding, right? Because there's a protective layer on there. And so I actually wonder if the opposite is true.
If we invested in other parts of our relationships, we would increase, there's a term for it actually, it's called tensility, which I had never heard um my mentor jane dutton gave me the term it's it's basically the carrying capacity of a relationship oh i like that like tensile strength yeah to bend without breaking okay um and i think you could say yeah the more we invest in the relationship the more we build it right but for some reason whatever we've been doing to invest in our relationships in the last decade was not enough. People didn't used to fight about politics, I think, pre-2015 the way they do now.
And we've still watched a lot of relationships fall apart. Think about how many in the US Thanksgiving dinners were just shattered.
Yeah. So I actually wonder if we're making in some ways the opposite mistake.

We say, you know, that's not important enough to have the argument.

Hmm. shattered.
So I actually wonder if we're making in some ways the opposite mistake. We say, you know, that's not important enough to have the argument.
I want to keep the peace. I don't want to damage the relationship.
And so we never build the calluses for the big ones. You're almost going to an earlier stage.
You're saying, because we don't spend enough time challenging each other on the small things, we're not prepared when the big things come around for a constructive and, let's say, respectful dialogue. Exactly.
But if you think about it for a second, it's, I mean, in any other domain of life, we would assume you have to practice when the stakes are low in order to be prepared for the higher stakes situation. But I think so often people are told, you know, just compromise, pick your battles in relationships, that they end up treating them as fragile, as opposed to saying, no, we've actually got to learn how to disagree.
And in fact, there's some classic research looking at families, looking at what does it take to raise a creative child? And it turns out that creative children come from families more often than not that had regular arguments and disagreements. Really? Yeah.
So if you want to raise a creative kid, you can at least increase the probability. I'm not sure if it's causal, but by arguing with your spouse a little bit more.
What do you think that is? I have an idea, but I'd love to know what you think that is. Well, I want to hear your hunch before I tell you what I think, because I've been thinking about this for a long time.
Okay, so here's what I think it is. I think the reason children who grow up in houses that are a little more argumentative might be a little more creative is because they're existing in an environment where there isn't one way to think.
And so what happens is they're both stumbling on what I like to call third thoughts, right? I had this idea when I was working on The Daily Show with my team. And I'd say, I think everyone has a thought, right? And then like you can have a second thought even by yourself.
But I think there's this elusive third thought that can only come from two different thoughts clashing together and forming a third thought that isn't from one specific place. And so I think if you are watching people who don't agree as a child, people who you generally love or you care for, et cetera, you are listening to a person and you are agreeing with them maybe, or just seeing their point of view.
You're looking at another person, agreeing with them and seeing their point of view. And then maybe you are holding both, including a third, which might be yours, which is another opinion of it.
And that might force your brain to think of more things than just the things that exist, which I think is what creativity fundamentally is. I love this.

Okay.

So, so your theory is cognitive complexity comes from seeing people argue that you don't default to.

I need to remember all the, you, you make like some of my ideas sound way smarter and

fancier than they are, which I like.

Cognitive complexity, write that down.

All right.

I just give you terms for things you already know.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Cool.

I also think you learn to be a nonconformist through that same process.

Oh, interesting. That instead of just defaulting or deferring to whatever an authority figure tells you, you realize, well, there are two different authorities in the room and they don't agree.
And I think that can both lead to cognitive complexity, but it can also lead to more courage when it comes to challenging the status quo. Because there's not a right answer coming from above.
There is not one coming from above. Yep.
You know, it's funny you say this. My mom is very religious, extremely, extremely religious.
But I also think she is one of the most progressive thinkers I've ever come across in my lifetime. And one thing I always noticed as a child was how sometimes she would disagree with the sermon that the pastor gave when we'd leave church.
And I'd be like, huh. And I'm just a kid.
I'm just sitting in the passenger seat listening. And she goes, I didn't agree with that.
I didn't. I hear where the pastor was coming from, but I think he was.
That story of Joseph is not about. And then she'd go into her thing and then I'd be like,

but he's the pastor.

And she's like, yeah,

he's a guy who reads the Bible.

He's not God.

Yeah, but he's not God.

He's like, we also have the Bible.

And it was an interesting way for me to view,

even religion is going like,

huh, don't assume that the person

who stands on the pulpit

has like a monopoly on knowledge.

You too have the book that you can read.

And so now that makes me wonder now,

I'm like,

huh,

was that part of me?

You know,

okay.

I like this.

I like it too.

I mean,

you can see both of those effects playing out.

Yeah,

definitely.

You're not just going to assume that the pastor's answer is gospel.

Right.

And then you're also not going to be afraid to question what somebody in power

says.

So how do you,

if you're a parent,

you're a parent,

All right. right and then you're also not going to be afraid to question what somebody in power says so how do you if you're a parent you're a parent i've met your daughter actually one of my favorite things i've encountered is you arguing with your daughter i don't even remember you don't remember this it was really fun so um i don't remember what it was about i wish i did but the two of you were having a discussion and she said i think it's this and you said why do you think it's that and you're like I don't know if I don't know if I agree with you and then I was like actually I agree with her and I really did I wasn't trying to stir shit or anything she had a respect for you but not like a not like a fear so have you have you encouraged that in your daughter have you gone like hey argue me like on everything or how does or does she just see it from you I I've tried to encourage it but it it's going to happen whether i do or not right because she i'm assuming she just observes this yeah i mean she sees me getting things wrong all the time and so how can you not speak up about that oh i like that but i will say you know so you haven't met my wife allison but uh during covid we did something that we'd never tried before which is we said okay, okay, we want to create a household where our kids are willing to constructively disagree and debate things.
We also want to raise a family in which they can admit their mistakes and not be ego defensive about what they did wrong. So we sat down at family dinner one night and we said, we're going to go around and each say something we want to do better.
And then we're going to ask everybody else to give us notes, basically, on how we can improve. And we did it first.
And we anticipated some of what our kids told us, not everything. But it was such a powerful conversation because I think for the – I'd never thought to do this before, although we do this at work all the time.
Bosses are supposed to ask their teams, how can I improve? I'd never seen parents do that actively with their kids before. And one of the notes that Joanna gave me was that I needed to be less stubborn.
And I was like, I literally just published a book about changing her mind. And then Elena jumped in and was like, you need to think again, dad.
Oh, that's funny. And I was like, oh, who am I writing this book for? It's for me because I need to internalize my own message.
But I do think that, look, some people, they think this is, you know, gentle parenting gone overboard. Like, I don't want to ask my kids how I can be a better parent.
Yeah. I'm like, I don't know a better way to model to them that we're all works in progress.
And we all get things wrong. And we all have to work on ourselves than that.
Was there something where you like disagreed and you're like, nope, I don't agree with your assessment? Yes. When we got to the, we should all have smartphones.
Nice. Nice.
Had to set a boundary there. Now, okay.
So now let's talk about that boundary. Because I think a lot of parents will relate to this.
Your kids go, hey, I think you're wrong about us not having smartphones. You go, nope, we do not think that we're wrong.
Like, how are you making that decision and what are you basing it on? Well, I think, look, I think the evidence is really messy and there are lots of conflicting findings. Even some of the most knowledgeable experts on this topic don't agree on what policies should be.
I think that two things jumped out at me. The first one is there was a study showing that the earlier kids got smartphones, the younger they were when they got their first one, the lower their self-esteem, the more emotional challenges they faced, even going into young adulthood.
Now, is that causal? We don't know. It could be that parents who were lax were lax in lots of different ways.
But that's concerning to me. Damn.
And then there was just a great experiment in Scandinavia showing that when smartphones were banned from schools, kids not only got better grades, but they also had better relationships and their social skills improved more. And so I think there's enough evidence to suggest that there are aspects of smartphones that may not be a net positive for kids.
A flip phone or a watch is probably good until high school. Yeah.
So I'm on a journey of trying to de-phonify my life right now. How's that working for you? It's actually going well.
So what I've realized is the gift of the modern smartphone is also its curse. And it's that everything is in one place.
And so I'm not saying it is bad, but I just go, the collection of everything is actually a curse at times. So it's like, imagine if everything that you kept in your house, food-wise, was in the exact same place.
I mean like cake, cupcakes, milk, eggs, bread, beans, you name it, but it was all in the same place. Think about how much more likely you would be to eat a bag of Doritos if like it was in the fridge.
Do you know what I mean? And so like, I think there's like a weird thing. We've even done this as humans where we've gone like, all right, that's the snacks cupboard.
So you know that if you open that, there'll be snacks. But if you put the snacks everywhere else, there's a high likelihood or a higher, I think, that you're gonna get sucked in and yeah and i think the same thing goes for the smartphone right there's like we we have this thing this is really good and you go into one part of it and then all of a sudden you're in another part of it and you're like wait what how did i get here what was i doing how did i so i what i'm trying to do right now is i'm trying to de-phoneify my life so i go i have the phone i understand that but what are the elements of the phone that i can try take out of the phone so that I don't have to take the phone out? Do you know what I mean? Yeah.
And then your friends don't lose you to your text or your email or Instagram. Yeah.
The look down, you know, the look down. And I, so I'm, I'm like trying to do that because, you know, to your point of like, what's the bad thing about, I don't think it's like, it's a, it's a, it's an unwelcome second system effect.
It's a thing that we didn't necessarily consider would happen when we made our phones, our flashlights, our phones, our email, our computers, our recording devices, our everything. I think your strategy is much better than what most people do, which is they just try to use willpower.
And the problem is nobody has enough self-control to resist every temptation that a phone brings. Man, I wish you were around when I was a kid, just so you could say that to my mom no one has enough self-control mom professional psychologists just said it don't go anywhere because we got more what now after this is it true that willpower like is a finite resource it's a there's a huge debate about that.
I think my read of the evidence, and just to be clear, I didn't buy a lot of the evidence when it was coming out. So this could be confirmation bias.
But I think that what looked like ability is actually motivation. So let me give you a classic example of this.
All right. So this is an old, old experiment.

Okay, go.

Not today's standards of rigor.

But people are brought into the lab and they have to just write endlessly.

Okay. For hours and hours and hours.

And you're told that you're supposed to write until you can't anymore, essentially.

So your hand is too cramped.

Okay.

And you finish writing.

Yeah.

And then you have to sign a form to get paid. And no one complains that their hand hurts while they sign the form.
It's a little context switch. And this task that was impossible to you, that you had exhausted your self-control to keep doing.
You cannot write anymore. You can't.
You're done. Oh, sign this thing.
Oh, no problem. Didn't even cross my mind.
And so I think what a lot of us have called willpower is actually just motivation. It's not self-control.
It's a question of, do you want this outcome? Does it matter to you? Are you excited about it? And if the answer is yes, you're going to find the willpower. So then are you saying that the motivation exerted upon us by snacks or junk food or social media

is more powerful than the motivation

that the gym exerts on us?

In the moment.

Yeah, psychologists would say that the snacks are a want

and the gym is a should.

And the wants exert a greater pull than shoulds do.

But we can outsmart the wants

by making the shoulds built into our habits or by making the wants less tempting. I think that other people play a huge role in this too.
So you know the famous marshmallow test? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the original version is we put a marshmallow in front of you, you're a toddler.
Yes. And you're told you can have it now, but if you're willing to wait a little while, then we'll give you two marshmallows.
Exactly. And then the amount of time that you delay the gratification predicts your SAT score and your grades in school, and it's supposed to be a measure of your willpower.
But to my point about motivation, there's a recent replication of the marshmallow experiment where some of the kids are told that another child will get a second marshmallow if they can wait. And what happens? And their quote unquote willpower goes up.
They don't want to let the other kid down. Is the other kid there staring at them? No.
They just told about the idea of another kid. Yeah.
Just knowing that another kid could lose a marshmallow because of you is enough to amplify your motivation and you wait a little bit longer. Are you doing that because you care about the other kid enjoying the gooey treat? Yes.
Could be part of it. Are you also doing that because you don't want to feel guilty about letting that kid down? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, but it doesn't matter whether it's one or the other or a combination of the two. At the end of the day, I think Maya Angelou said, I'm counting on you, counting on me.

And that's what's happening here.

Let's take that out of that world and think.

Did they ever try playing around with who they told the kids was going to get the marshmallow?

I don't know.

Because I'd be fascinated if they said, hey, there's an adult in the other room who'll get a marshmallow do they care hey there's a grandmother who there's a grandfather there's a dog there's a sheep hey the devil is in the next room and like satan and if you wait satan will get an extra marshmallow i wonder what the result would be and the reason I ask it is because I think about like extrapolating this to larger society. And I go, it makes sense to me that a kid would think of another kid when holding out on taking a marshmallow, right? Because they go, if I get, I'll get another one and they'll get another one.
Us kids get more, right? What happens when that kid no longer thinks that the other thing is like them? Do you know what I mean? I do. And then the question I have for you is, how do we then overcome that in society? Because we see it in everything, right? In America, we're getting to a point where Republicans and Democrats no longer see each other as human beings you know you take it everywhere you take it everywhere you know israel palestine is a great example and one thing that always strikes me is when i talk to friends especially from the region is they'll be like man we're a lot more similar than you guys think we are from the outside and this is a lot more like heinous for us as human beings than you know people, people sort of play around with it.
And so I wonder, is there like a way to improve that? Or is there a way to understand why we do or don't see somebody as being a kid in the other room who might get a marshmallow? Oh, there are so many things we could think about there. First one is Lee Ross did this experiment years ago before it was nearly as polarized as it is now, but it was Israel and Palestine at the time.
It was a test of allegiance. So people who are strongly either pro-Palestine or pro-Israel are presented with peace plans from the other side.
And the question is, how do they feel about them? And they're also presented with plans from their own side. And it turns out the content of the plan is irrelevant.
What matters is what group you think created it. So if you're pro-Palestine, you're more excited about the plan that Israelis came up with if it was labeled a Palestinian plan than you are your own country's plan if it was labeled an Israeli plan.
And I think that really just speaks to your point about both in-group loyalty and out-group distrust or maybe even dehumanization. So we feel if we think the idea is coming from somebody that we don't trust or somebody that we don't feel holds the same value as we do as a human, we're less likely to take on that idea.
Throw it out. I think most psychologists would tell you that the majority of prejudice is driven not originally by outgroup hate, but by in-group love.
Huh, wait, wait, say more about that. Well, I think the classic finding is that people will, they'll attach to a group.
Yeah. When they have the most minimal and trivial cues of groupness.
Like, you know, you can just put people in a room together and say, come up with a name for your group. And all of a sudden that group is good.
And any group that's not us, well, we have to treat them a little bit differently. It's that simple.
It often is. We see it happen all around us.
So one of the things Tim Cundro and I did a few years ago was we said, okay, part of what people don't think about is they think about the group that they belong to as part of their essence. It's who I am.
But if you run the counterfactual, it's very possible you could have belonged to a different group. So we started out with a really simple example.
We did Red Sox and Yankees fans, given that that's one of the most intense rivalries in American sports. It is indeed.
What we did was we said, we want you to just write about what it would be like if you're a Yankees fan to have grown up in Boston. And then they're less nasty to the other side after doing that.
It seems to be the case that they start to see more similarities between them and the people that they thought were their enemy. And they realize like, wow, this deep allegiance that I thought this was who I am, it's actually just an accident of birth or where my parents happened to live at a given time.
And then we said, okay, well, what if this process of counterfactual thinking could go bigger than baseball rivalries?

So we had people on opposite sides of guns and abortion do the same exercise.

And we said, okay, if you're somebody who's very strongly gun safety,

imagine you grew up hunting in the South with your family, how might you feel differently?

And we found that not only were people more open to having a genuine disagreement with the other side, not only were they more willing to listen to their challenging opinions, they were more interested in dating somebody who disagreed with them. Oh, that switched quick.
Yeah. Yeah.
Wow. And all, I mean, this is literally a one minute intervention.
Now, the problem is a lot of people won't do the exercise in the first place. Right.
So I sit down with somebody and I say, Hey Trevor, like imagine you'd grown up. Well, I wouldn't have been raised in those circumstances.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
So I think that's the next step is to figure out how to get people to engage with that. Yeah.
It's, I often, I often wonder if this is a, you know, I sometimes think of it as a failure of leadership you know um there's a so for instance america's a good example you know the ascent of donald trump i found particularly interesting because he was the first politician i had seen in america who really made it zero sum in a way that i i never really seen any politicians

do before you know it doesn't matter if it's like george bush it doesn't matter if it built clinton there was always an element of like reach across the aisle and and now trump has gone like no actually forget that no reaching no shaking hands no nothing you're scum of the earth you know what i I mean? And I'm intrigued by why that attitude, which we're seeing around the world, by the way, I'm not saying this is a

Donald Trump thing. Why is that more seductive than the people who say, let's see it from the

other side, let's shake hands, let's think about this, let's find, like, why is it more seductive

if the other one makes us better human beings to each other? I think it's not a coincidence, as you said, that this is happening around the world. Yeah.
And I think that it's happening around the world in a context of perceived scarcity and fear of loss. Oh, yeah.
So the American version is, this is the first generation on record that is not going to be better off than their parents. And if you're sitting around worrying about that all the time, it is really appealing to have somebody who tells you, I alone can fix this.
So from a psychology standpoint, how do we fix it? The Heineken commercial is a good start. I'm sorry? You've seen the Heineken commercial, right? Which one? There was just a massive experiment where I think psychologists submitted at least two dozen different interventions to try to bridge divides.
Okay. And the Heineken commercial beat all of them.
The commercial? The commercial. Yeah.
Can we pull it? This one? I would describe my political views as the new right.

I'd say that I'm left.

So it's a four-minute Heineken ad where essentially they bring people together,

they play us their, I guess, main belief.

If somebody said to me that climate change is destroying the world,

then I'd say that is total piffle.

You know, I'm anti-trans, I'm a feminist, I hate feminists, etc., etc.

So transgender, it is very odd. I am a daughter, a wife.
I am transgender. They put the people who have the opposing beliefs with each other, then they give them a series of tasks to complete, and then they expose to them the main belief that other people have that I guess differs, and then they agree and they sit down and they have a beer even if you wanted to to convince people about your point the productive thing to do would be to sit engage I've been brought up in a way where everything's black and white but life isn't black and white now let's go back to what you said, the ad itself?

Yes, this is the amazing thing, is you don't have to go and have the beer or build the box with the person.

You just have to watch the ad.

It's enough to reduce your prejudice against the other side.

Huh. Why do we think that is?

Well, I think what's happening, and you can actually hear some of it in the video,

is we're confronting binary bias, which is the basic tendency that people have to oversimplify a complex world into two categories. Okay.
You know, Republicans bad, Democrats good. Right.
And showing a 3D view of that and sort of busting that bubble. So, you know what's interesting about this? You talk about coming around full circle.
In a weird way, it almost feels like we as adults should be living in a world where we watch multiple parents arguing. Because then it'll help us be more creative in how we see our connection with other people.
Because if you think about it, if you show Americans Republican and Democrat, they believe that there are only two ways to see an issue, there are only two outcomes to every issue, and there are only two ways to be. That then fundamentally means at the end of the day, just, I mean, averaging and odds, and you're probably going to end up at a 50-50 impasse because that's what it is.
But if you found a way to show them sort of an anonymized breakdown of views, people may be more likely to come to more complex conclusions about a varying set of topics.

Yes. And I don't need you to think I'm right.

I just need you to recognize that you might be wrong, just as I know I might be.

And actually, Trevor, there's a really specific example of this that if you were still hosting The Daily Show, I would say do it this fall.

Sarah Conrath has tested the effects of changing the maps we show in election seasons and says there's no such thing as a blue state or a red state right just different proportions yeah and it turns out if you show people a purple map with different shades uh they're actually more uh they're more open to the other side and they show less prejudice less stereotyping less discrimination that's amazing why haven't we just haven't we just done that? I don't know. I think we all should be.
Well, I think we know the answer to that. Yeah, it's not as dramatic.
It's not as. And I think you see like this is what I mean is like not that things are, you know, again, not the binary good or bad.
But if you look at like if you look at incentives, in many ways, I would say like the news in and around the world has tendencies that the snack and junk food industry has. And that it is trying to maximize.
So if they show you a red and blue map, it makes you feel like you are engaged in a battle where one side is encroaching and you are either winning or you are losing, but you really see this thing visually. Showing me a shades of purplish map is just like, you've now just shown me the united states of america which is not scary is not as exciting and so it's like in a weird way it's almost like that's what we have to ask ourselves is where do the incentives lie if the news has an incentive to keep you watching unfortunately that incentive will probably be best served by them making you feel like everything is always ending and then people are coming to get you, right? Maybe.
I think so. I don't know.
I mean, people are going to listen to this podcast. They might even watch it.
We haven't discussed any urgent news or any headlines. Yes.
There's a huge appetite for long-form, thoughtful, complexified conversations.

Yes.

I don't think we figured out how to put that on TV. Yeah, in a weird way, it goes back to the incentives and who's running them or controlling them.
It does, but I think on the margins, there are still things we can do. So we were talking earlier about people not trusting science.
And I think a huge reason why that happened is science was oversimplified. And so what we ought to say is, here's an initial study and the best available evidence points in the following direction, but here are the caveats, right? You see that in any scientific paper you read.
Well, journalists are afraid to do that because they think it undermines interest. It doesn't.
There are a whole bunch of studies, which I should caveat. We don't know if they're going to continue to replicate, but people are just as interested and they read with healthy skepticism and they appreciate the complexity.
So then let me ask you this. Using everything you've taught me in this conversation, how do you think you will bridge or reevaluate your relationship with a friend of yours who believes in astrology and you had like a little like ranty bust up with what do you what do you think you can do now to connect with them what do you think i should do i would start with the like apology just be like hey man really sorry you know me science i put science above everything and studies have actually shown that people like me are less likely to be open to a different opinion.
And so, yeah, man, anyway, it's actually funny. I wouldn't have usually done that, but Mercury's in retrograde.
And that probably contributed to my inability to connect with you as a person. And then if they laugh, then, you know, you're in the space.
And then if they don't, you can be can be like i'm joking or whatever then maybe you know you find like a little bridge and you know their sense of humor and you know what connected you in the first place and then you go from there and then you're like anyway how's and i think that is enough i don't think you're supposed to solve it there personally let's sort of build the scaffolding around this this fracture in the column of our friendship and then when that scaffolding intact, at some point you can come back, joke, laugh, connect, and whatever. Because I don't

think you need to agree with your friends on everything. But if you get back to remembering

that they're a human being, I do find you can have like a really wonderful relationship where

you can even now mock each other about that and just be like, yeah, of course, what are you going

to say about that? What are you going to say? I think that's what i would think i love this do you do you talk about astrology again or do you just yeah but i think it aside yeah but i think you it's it's it's it's no different to a limb that is injured right why do we put people on crutches we put people on crutches so that they can stay off the limb that's hurt right now in the long term you intend to get back on that limb and you're going to do some physical therapy but for the short term it's like stay it stay off of it and then next thing you know you're back at single leg squats and and you're in the game and i think i believe that that point of a friendship actually becomes greater because now you have a rift that you've repaired and i sometimes think i sometimes think the most important connections you'll make are actually in the rifts i think those moments is where like the the real like like core of a friendship actually exists and like the strength of it why because i think you've now built a new type of trust you've shown to each other that you have the ability to come back from anything and i think that resilience might be more important than just like a like a theoretical willingness and so you can then laugh and go like man remember that fight we had remember that shit that went wrong remember that oh wow that was i can't believe we man that was that's what i think so you've you've proven your commitment to each other also as part of that is yeah yeah so that's what i'm trying to work on in my life with people as i go like all right i disagree with that have we shored up every other part of our lives all right let's tap on that a little bit how are you feeling about that today let's chat a little bit more have you seen this what is your perspective on this i find that helps me a lot with people as i go i've read this article i would like to know how you how you see this and how you perceive it before i say anything I find, and that's maybe why I keep them and call them friends. I find the people who I have in my life are willing to say, yeah, actually that's not, or this is, and I find over the years and over the months, our conversations have become a lot softer at the edges than they once would have been.
I think you missed a calling as a therapist slash life coach.

No, no, no, no.

Well, you do it masterfully.

And I can't help but react to one thing that you just highlighted, which is,

I don't think character is how you treat people when things are going your way.

It's how you show up on a hard day.

And I think true character is what do you do when your values are tested?

Yeah. What do you do when your values are tested? Yeah.
What do you do when your values are tested? Damn. What do you do when your values are tested? Well, we'll leave everyone thinking of that one.
Adam Grant, it's always a pleasure chatting to you. Honor is mine, Trevor.
Thank you. It's a blast, as always.
Jess Hackl, Claire Slaughter is our producer. Music, mixing and mastering by Hannes Brown.

Thank you so much for listening.