WEBVTT 00:00:03.180 --> 00:00:07.110 Matt Abrahams: Relevance is critical to communication, relevance to 00:00:07.110 --> 00:00:09.420 yourself, and relevance to others. 00:00:09.900 --> 00:00:13.230 My name is Matt Abrahams and I teach strategic communication at 00:00:13.230 --> 00:00:15.030 Stanford Graduate School of Business. 00:00:15.330 --> 00:00:18.540 Welcome to Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. 00:00:19.875 --> 00:00:21.875 Today I'm excited to speak with Emily Falk. 00:00:22.365 --> 00:00:25.905 Emily is a professor of communication, psychology and marketing at the 00:00:25.905 --> 00:00:29.205 University of Pennsylvania and the Vice Dean of the Annenberg School 00:00:29.205 --> 00:00:33.225 of Communication, where she directs the Communication Neuroscience Lab. 00:00:33.615 --> 00:00:39.255 Her latest book is entitled What We Value: The Neuroscience of Choice and Change. 00:00:39.795 --> 00:00:40.785 Welcome, Emily. 00:00:40.845 --> 00:00:42.465 I'm really excited for our conversation. 00:00:42.465 --> 00:00:45.705 I know we missed each other once when you were out at Stanford, and I'm excited 00:00:45.705 --> 00:00:47.235 that we're getting to talk in this way. 00:00:47.355 --> 00:00:48.135 Shall we get started? 00:00:48.450 --> 00:00:48.900 Emily Falk: Let's do it. 00:00:49.290 --> 00:00:52.260 Matt Abrahams: So in your lab and your research, you use neuroscience 00:00:52.260 --> 00:00:54.000 to explore communication. 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:57.810 And a topic I, and many of our listeners, are fascinated by 00:00:58.080 --> 00:00:59.610 is persuasion and influence. 00:00:59.610 --> 00:01:02.850 And I know you've done a lot of work in this area and I'm curious if you 00:01:02.850 --> 00:01:07.920 can share with us how do our neuro responses to persuasive messages 00:01:07.980 --> 00:01:10.005 help predict real world behaviors? 00:01:10.050 --> 00:01:13.590 Can you share some of your findings and, and what we can do based on those? 00:01:13.950 --> 00:01:18.240 Emily Falk: Yeah, in our early research, a lot of my work was focused on 00:01:18.240 --> 00:01:22.020 persuasive messages that were designed to change people's behaviors, like to 00:01:22.020 --> 00:01:26.070 help people quit smoking or get more physically active or wear sunscreen. 00:01:26.310 --> 00:01:31.590 And as I've continued to do that work and found that neural activity and response to 00:01:31.590 --> 00:01:37.020 persuasive messages can help us understand behavior change, and also what people 00:01:37.020 --> 00:01:40.830 decide not only to change themselves, but also what they want to share with others. 00:01:41.050 --> 00:01:43.720 I've also gotten really interested in like, well, how do we choose what 00:01:43.720 --> 00:01:45.520 those behaviors are in the first place? 00:01:45.640 --> 00:01:49.450 So whereas in the early work, a lot of it was aimed at convincing people of 00:01:49.450 --> 00:01:54.730 stuff, in my more recent research program, I'm more interested in how do we help 00:01:54.730 --> 00:01:59.500 people develop a sense of agency and autonomy, and how do they successfully 00:01:59.530 --> 00:02:01.750 pursue goals that they want to achieve. 00:02:02.175 --> 00:02:04.875 Matt Abrahams: In some ways it's self persuasion you're talking about. 00:02:04.875 --> 00:02:06.345 How do we motivate ourselves? 00:02:06.554 --> 00:02:07.335 Emily Falk: Exactly. 00:02:07.664 --> 00:02:10.035 Matt Abrahams: So what have you found both in your prior research 00:02:10.035 --> 00:02:13.125 and in the new research that we can all take to heart when we try 00:02:13.125 --> 00:02:14.984 to persuade others and ourselves? 00:02:15.480 --> 00:02:18.660 Emily Falk: There are three core brain systems that our work has focused on. 00:02:18.780 --> 00:02:24.270 One, is the brain's valuation system that helps us calculate how valuable 00:02:24.270 --> 00:02:29.160 we anticipate any number of different choice options to be, and then to select 00:02:29.160 --> 00:02:32.340 the one that our brain anticipates is gonna be the most rewarding to 00:02:32.340 --> 00:02:34.900 us, and then to enact that choice. 00:02:35.200 --> 00:02:39.329 And that value system integrates lots of different inputs from many other 00:02:39.329 --> 00:02:43.619 brain systems, and two that really interest me are the brain self relevance 00:02:43.619 --> 00:02:47.519 system that helps us think about whether something is me or not me. 00:02:47.519 --> 00:02:50.609 It helps us think about our past experiences and make meaning 00:02:50.609 --> 00:02:54.420 of them and think about our own traits and what we're thinking. 00:02:54.805 --> 00:02:59.005 Then the social relevance system, which sometimes scientists talk about in terms 00:02:59.005 --> 00:03:01.345 of a theory of mind or mentalizing system. 00:03:01.345 --> 00:03:05.125 And I use social relevance as this kind of catchall for these thoughts about 00:03:05.125 --> 00:03:08.815 what other people are thinking and feeling, which also helps us predict 00:03:08.815 --> 00:03:11.935 what they're gonna do and how we might communicate successfully with them, 00:03:11.935 --> 00:03:14.275 or negotiate or win a game of chess. 00:03:14.535 --> 00:03:19.755 By extension, thinking about what are the ways that we can tap into those processes 00:03:19.755 --> 00:03:24.404 and think about making behaviors that we want to do or that are compatible 00:03:24.404 --> 00:03:29.954 with our long-term goals, feel identity congruent and socially valuable now. 00:03:30.464 --> 00:03:34.454 Matt Abrahams: So if we were to craft messages to try to motivate somebody to 00:03:34.454 --> 00:03:38.774 do something, that's in line with what we're asking, we have to factor in both 00:03:38.894 --> 00:03:44.024 the impact, or the recipient's identity, how they see themselves, but also the 00:03:44.024 --> 00:03:46.094 social value that that brings as well. 00:03:46.094 --> 00:03:46.844 Did I get that right? 00:03:47.150 --> 00:03:49.460 Emily Falk: Well, I don't know that you always have to do both, but those 00:03:49.460 --> 00:03:51.799 are two potential inroads to doing it. 00:03:51.829 --> 00:03:55.670 So for example, in research that we've done, looking at what motivates 00:03:55.670 --> 00:04:01.100 people to share information, when we gave them messages that were about 00:04:01.100 --> 00:04:05.200 things like health or climate change, headlines and teasers, and we just 00:04:05.200 --> 00:04:09.350 ask them to talk to other people about what this article's about. 00:04:09.350 --> 00:04:12.110 So they write a little social media post about what the article's 00:04:12.110 --> 00:04:13.700 about, and that's our control group. 00:04:13.700 --> 00:04:16.160 So that's kind of the baseline of like, how much are people 00:04:16.160 --> 00:04:19.340 motivated to share when they're just asked to share the information. 00:04:19.550 --> 00:04:22.160 And we compare that to when we give them the chance to make 00:04:22.160 --> 00:04:23.510 it relevant to themselves. 00:04:23.540 --> 00:04:27.365 So really simple prompts like, write about how this relates to you and 00:04:27.365 --> 00:04:30.664 things that you care about, or write about how this might be relevant 00:04:30.664 --> 00:04:32.135 to people in your social network. 00:04:32.344 --> 00:04:36.635 And in both of those conditions where we ask people to focus on the self 00:04:36.635 --> 00:04:40.655 relevance or the social relevance, it significantly increases people's 00:04:40.715 --> 00:04:42.604 interest in sharing that information. 00:04:42.950 --> 00:04:45.739 Matt Abrahams: So you were able to persuade them to be more motivated 00:04:45.739 --> 00:04:48.469 by asking them to focus on the relevance to themselves or the 00:04:48.469 --> 00:04:49.880 relevance to those they know. 00:04:50.030 --> 00:04:50.570 Emily Falk: Exactly. 00:04:50.570 --> 00:04:53.929 And there's a lot of other kinds of techniques as well that tap 00:04:53.929 --> 00:04:55.400 into those kinds of processes. 00:04:55.400 --> 00:04:59.330 So if message tailoring is an idea that's been around for a long time, 00:04:59.479 --> 00:05:05.000 where scientists have found that when they tailor persuasive messages to the 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:09.635 recipients goals, values, things that they know about that person's history. 00:05:09.635 --> 00:05:14.975 For example, in research on tailoring smoking messages, if a smoker wants to 00:05:14.975 --> 00:05:18.615 quit because they're sick of spending all their money on cigarettes, then 00:05:18.615 --> 00:05:22.595 giving them messages that really focus on those cost issues can be more effective 00:05:22.595 --> 00:05:25.955 than focusing on, you know, maybe the long-term health effects if that's not 00:05:25.955 --> 00:05:27.275 the thing that they really care about. 00:05:27.795 --> 00:05:30.765 For a different person, let's say that they really are motivated to 00:05:30.765 --> 00:05:33.135 quit because they wanna protect the people in their family. 00:05:33.135 --> 00:05:35.925 They're worried about secondhand smoke in their kids, and so for 00:05:35.925 --> 00:05:40.605 that person focusing on cost may be less of a persuasive argument 00:05:40.665 --> 00:05:44.715 and focusing on keeping their kids safe might be the way to do it. 00:05:44.920 --> 00:05:48.070 So that's an example where a different route to tapping into self 00:05:48.070 --> 00:05:52.990 relevance is also then compatible with more successful influence. 00:05:53.080 --> 00:05:57.130 And one of the things that I really like about having a neuroscience perspective 00:05:57.130 --> 00:06:02.650 on all of this is that I think it can help boil it down to what kinds of systems 00:06:02.650 --> 00:06:06.190 many of these different interventions are tapping into, and then give us a 00:06:06.190 --> 00:06:08.500 way of just organizing that information. 00:06:08.925 --> 00:06:12.495 Matt Abrahams: I find it so fascinating that looking at how the brain functions 00:06:12.585 --> 00:06:17.535 in communication can really give insight into why and how things work. 00:06:17.535 --> 00:06:20.415 I find how you study communication to be really fascinating. 00:06:20.700 --> 00:06:23.880 What I'm hearing is that you really have to think about your audience and 00:06:23.880 --> 00:06:25.740 what might be motivational to them. 00:06:26.010 --> 00:06:30.000 So many of us in our communication just focus on broadcasting the information out, 00:06:30.060 --> 00:06:34.980 but if you can actually find the value and motivation and tailor the message, 00:06:35.070 --> 00:06:38.670 especially if it can be around what's relevant to the individual or to their 00:06:38.670 --> 00:06:40.830 social network or social environment. 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:42.080 It can really make a difference. 00:06:42.080 --> 00:06:45.469 So we have to take the time to think about it, and in many cases, those 00:06:45.469 --> 00:06:48.409 of us who have the opportunity, we could test different messages it 00:06:48.409 --> 00:06:51.800 sounds like, to see which is our most relevant for which people. 00:06:51.890 --> 00:06:56.000 And I think that's so useful to being effective in the communication. 00:06:56.060 --> 00:06:57.170 Did I miss anything in that? 00:06:57.805 --> 00:07:00.555 Emily Falk: Yeah, so when we think about the way that these brain systems 00:07:00.555 --> 00:07:05.205 are working, one of the things that I find fascinating is that our value 00:07:05.205 --> 00:07:09.735 system tends to prioritize rewards that are psychologically close. 00:07:09.945 --> 00:07:12.375 And what does psychologically close mean? 00:07:12.630 --> 00:07:17.190 When we think about the way that the medial prefrontal cortex functions, there 00:07:17.190 --> 00:07:21.330 have been these beautiful papers led by people like Diana Tamir and Carolyn 00:07:21.330 --> 00:07:25.650 Parkinson that have shown something that wasn't at all obvious to me, which is 00:07:25.650 --> 00:07:30.090 that different kinds of psychological distance are encoded in similar ways. 00:07:30.180 --> 00:07:34.830 So something that happens far off in the future or geographically, 00:07:34.890 --> 00:07:38.870 the other side of the world, or to somebody who's socially really 00:07:38.870 --> 00:07:42.800 different than I am, those things all function in kind of similar ways. 00:07:42.800 --> 00:07:46.790 And so when we say that we want to make it relevant to the person, it's not 00:07:46.790 --> 00:07:50.930 only just like relevant to Matt, or relevant to Emily, but it's relevant to 00:07:50.930 --> 00:07:53.060 the person that's right here, right now. 00:07:53.120 --> 00:07:57.620 Like if we want to change some kind of behavior because it's gonna have a payoff 00:07:57.620 --> 00:08:00.970 that's several decades in the future, you might as well be talking about a 00:08:00.970 --> 00:08:04.480 different person who's gonna get that benefit from the brain's perspective. 00:08:04.600 --> 00:08:08.860 Or when we think about, you know, asking people to lend a helping hand or to make 00:08:08.860 --> 00:08:13.270 donations for folks that are all the way on the other side of the world, in other 00:08:13.270 --> 00:08:18.070 communities, without doing extra work to make that concrete and vivid and help you 00:08:18.070 --> 00:08:23.110 really imagine like, what are the rewards for somebody that I can connect with? 00:08:23.380 --> 00:08:25.240 Then it can be less motivating. 00:08:25.240 --> 00:08:29.260 And so I think that this way of thinking about psychological distance is another 00:08:29.260 --> 00:08:32.530 key ingredient that's relevant to the brain's value system has been 00:08:32.530 --> 00:08:35.679 really helpful for me in thinking about shaping these kinds of messages. 00:08:36.045 --> 00:08:36.915 Matt Abrahams: Absolutely. 00:08:36.915 --> 00:08:40.845 So relevance is not just in general, it's proximal or distal. 00:08:41.145 --> 00:08:43.755 I remember when I was in graduate school, I did some work with Phil 00:08:43.755 --> 00:08:48.015 Zimbardo on time perspective, and we looked at persuasive messaging that had 00:08:48.015 --> 00:08:50.265 long-term consequences versus short-term. 00:08:50.265 --> 00:08:54.645 So we looked at brushing your teeth, and we talked about how the distant goal was 00:08:54.825 --> 00:08:57.945 you'll have healthy teeth and you won't need to have dentures when you get older, 00:08:58.035 --> 00:09:01.785 which was nowhere near as successful in terms of messaging as when we talked 00:09:01.785 --> 00:09:04.785 about how you'll have fresh breath and your teeth will look white and clean. 00:09:04.785 --> 00:09:08.385 So this notion of thinking about relevance, not just generically, 00:09:08.385 --> 00:09:12.945 but in terms of how close it is to the real time, is fascinating to me. 00:09:13.545 --> 00:09:19.485 Beyond tailoring for relevance, what is the value of story in framing messages? 00:09:19.935 --> 00:09:23.145 Emily Falk: There are a lot of different ways that we can frame messages that 00:09:23.145 --> 00:09:27.315 increase their effectiveness, and so there's a large literature in 00:09:27.315 --> 00:09:33.015 communication and psychology, which shows that when we use stories to communicate, 00:09:33.225 --> 00:09:37.545 it can reduce people's defensiveness, make them more open to new ideas. 00:09:37.545 --> 00:09:40.875 Often people identify with characters in the story. 00:09:40.995 --> 00:09:45.770 And in our work we found that when people are given information in the form of 00:09:45.770 --> 00:09:50.300 stories, it also makes it easier for them to reason about the information. 00:09:50.390 --> 00:09:54.890 So for example, in a study that Jason Coronel led, when he was in my lab, he 00:09:54.890 --> 00:10:00.949 brought people who smoke into the lab and he presented them with information about 00:10:00.949 --> 00:10:03.110 a wide range of topics, including smoking. 00:10:03.110 --> 00:10:08.120 And sometimes that information was presented in the form of didactic facts. 00:10:08.209 --> 00:10:11.710 You know, if you smoke for several decades, it significantly 00:10:11.710 --> 00:10:13.630 increases your risk of lung cancer. 00:10:13.750 --> 00:10:18.490 And then for other folks, they got the information in the form of stories. 00:10:18.490 --> 00:10:23.740 So for example, John is a smoker who smoked for several decades. 00:10:23.740 --> 00:10:25.020 He developed lung cancer. 00:10:25.290 --> 00:10:28.430 And the twist in this study, that's different from some of the other 00:10:28.430 --> 00:10:32.450 behavioral science studies, is that people came in for two different sessions, 00:10:32.450 --> 00:10:36.500 and in one of those sessions we used a kind of brain stimulation technique 00:10:36.500 --> 00:10:40.970 called transcranial direct current stimulation, which changes the activation 00:10:40.970 --> 00:10:43.220 in particular regions of people's brains. 00:10:43.370 --> 00:10:48.200 So during one session they had this brain stimulation that like literally decreased 00:10:48.200 --> 00:10:50.840 activation in regions that help us reason. 00:10:51.260 --> 00:10:55.065 And during the other session they got a sham stimulation, where we 00:10:55.065 --> 00:10:57.825 hook them up to the equipment, and everything's happening in a similar 00:10:57.825 --> 00:11:01.945 way, but they're not actually having any alteration happening in their brains. 00:11:02.285 --> 00:11:07.320 And the finding there was that for people who got the information delivered in the 00:11:07.320 --> 00:11:11.970 typical didactic facts kind of way, when they were under brain stimulation that 00:11:11.970 --> 00:11:16.110 was decreasing activation within parts of lateral prefrontal cortex that help 00:11:16.110 --> 00:11:19.830 us reason, they were less able to reason, which is exactly what you would predict. 00:11:20.069 --> 00:11:23.939 On the other hand, when people were told that information in the form of a 00:11:23.939 --> 00:11:27.600 story, reasoning about an exemplar is something that we do from the time that 00:11:27.600 --> 00:11:32.040 we're really little kids, and it taps into different kinds of brain systems. 00:11:32.040 --> 00:11:36.270 So other research has shown that stories tap into these social brain systems. 00:11:36.480 --> 00:11:41.040 And even when we essentially reduced people's ability to use these parts of 00:11:41.040 --> 00:11:45.240 their brain, they were still able to reason about the stories just as well. 00:11:45.569 --> 00:11:49.530 So stories are one effective way of improving our communications. 00:11:50.170 --> 00:11:53.770 Matt Abrahams: Thank you for sharing the value of story and how even when 00:11:53.770 --> 00:11:57.969 you purposely impact, in a negative way, people's ability to reason 00:11:57.969 --> 00:11:59.890 stories still have great power. 00:12:00.300 --> 00:12:02.910 I find in my own life I learn best when people tell stories. 00:12:02.910 --> 00:12:06.270 One of the things I enjoyed so much about your book is that you have lots of stories 00:12:06.270 --> 00:12:08.490 that reinforce and support what you say. 00:12:08.700 --> 00:12:12.780 I want to turn to your new book, What We Value, and you dedicated a whole 00:12:12.780 --> 00:12:17.940 chapter of that book to brain synchrony that happens between people when we 00:12:17.940 --> 00:12:19.260 communicate, when we tell stories. 00:12:19.470 --> 00:12:22.140 Can you define what that synchrony means? 00:12:22.410 --> 00:12:25.770 Emily Falk: Neural synchrony happens when people's brain 00:12:25.770 --> 00:12:27.660 activation follows similar patterns. 00:12:28.365 --> 00:12:32.415 And so one of the kind of simplest ways of thinking about synchrony 00:12:32.415 --> 00:12:36.915 is that if activation in a given region in my brain and your brain are 00:12:36.915 --> 00:12:41.085 going up and down at the same times, that's something we call synchrony. 00:12:41.265 --> 00:12:46.035 Some of the early research on neural synchrony looked at how neural synchrony 00:12:46.035 --> 00:12:48.075 relates to shared understanding. 00:12:48.165 --> 00:12:51.345 And there have been a number of studies that have shown that when 00:12:51.345 --> 00:12:55.650 people's brains are more in sync, especially in the social relevance 00:12:55.650 --> 00:13:00.810 system and other brain systems, that is associated with making similar meaning. 00:13:00.930 --> 00:13:05.369 And what I mean by that is, for example, when one person tells a story and 00:13:05.369 --> 00:13:10.199 another person gets the main point or extracts the same facts from the 00:13:10.199 --> 00:13:14.010 story, then that's associated with their brains being more in sync. 00:13:14.290 --> 00:13:18.520 When we watch movies together, like if we watch a movie that's a powerful 00:13:18.520 --> 00:13:22.510 movie, then that external stimulus is gonna drive our brains to be in sync. 00:13:22.510 --> 00:13:28.660 So often audiences watching, you know, a really amazing Western or listening to 00:13:28.660 --> 00:13:32.704 a powerful political speech, their brain activation is gonna be driven up and 00:13:32.704 --> 00:13:35.435 down in similar ways at similar times. 00:13:35.704 --> 00:13:39.545 Matt Abrahams: Are there ways to bring about synchrony so that you 00:13:39.545 --> 00:13:43.444 can have that shared meaning, which can help accomplish many goals? 00:13:43.444 --> 00:13:46.725 I can imagine empathy is a critical component of shared meaning. 00:13:47.025 --> 00:13:49.740 It sounds to me like storytelling is one way. 00:13:49.980 --> 00:13:53.370 Are there other ways to bring about this kind of synchrony so you can get the 00:13:53.370 --> 00:13:56.160 benefit of shared reality, shared empathy? 00:13:56.460 --> 00:14:00.000 Emily Falk: Well, I think what you're saying sort of highlights one of the ways, 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:01.680 when you're talking about shared reality. 00:14:01.740 --> 00:14:06.329 There's other research that has shown that when people have similar 00:14:06.360 --> 00:14:11.520 assumptions going into a communication that their brains are more in sync. 00:14:11.520 --> 00:14:16.080 So for example, a research study at Princeton showed that when people 00:14:16.080 --> 00:14:20.280 were given different back stories, before their brains were scanned, the 00:14:20.280 --> 00:14:23.370 people who are given the first back stories brains are in sync with one 00:14:23.370 --> 00:14:27.180 another, but out of sync with people who are given a different backstory. 00:14:27.180 --> 00:14:30.480 So making sure that we're on the same page about what kinds of 00:14:30.480 --> 00:14:33.000 assumptions we have is one thing. 00:14:33.270 --> 00:14:36.930 There have also been a handful of studies looking at what happens 00:14:36.930 --> 00:14:38.339 in the brains of partisans. 00:14:38.339 --> 00:14:42.780 So people in the US, for example, who tend to be more liberal or more conservative. 00:14:42.959 --> 00:14:47.220 And what that research has shown is that when people watch the same media 00:14:47.220 --> 00:14:53.220 clips, people who share ideological perspectives also tend to be more in 00:14:53.220 --> 00:14:56.430 sync with each other than with people who are part of the other group. 00:14:56.579 --> 00:15:00.180 And I think that that is also a function of the kinds of assumptions 00:15:00.180 --> 00:15:01.760 that people are bringing to the table. 00:15:01.969 --> 00:15:05.670 And behavioral research shows that the media play a large part in that. 00:15:05.729 --> 00:15:09.329 And you know, as Vice Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication and 00:15:09.359 --> 00:15:12.930 a communication scholar, like that's a piece of this puzzle that I think 00:15:12.930 --> 00:15:17.130 is so important for us to recognize is that the media that we consume 00:15:17.310 --> 00:15:21.959 fundamentally shapes so much about how we see the world, what we think and feel. 00:15:22.020 --> 00:15:25.930 There's this incredible study where political scientists randomized 00:15:25.930 --> 00:15:32.109 people to change their news viewing habits, and after changing their news 00:15:32.109 --> 00:15:36.310 viewing for a relatively short period of just a few weeks, the things that 00:15:36.310 --> 00:15:40.380 they thought were important, like what issues to focus on shifted. 00:15:40.560 --> 00:15:43.479 Their beliefs about those things shifted. 00:15:43.599 --> 00:15:49.030 And so of course, in day-to-day life, we don't usually make these major pivots, 00:15:49.120 --> 00:15:52.599 but if we want to understand where other people are coming from or checking 00:15:52.599 --> 00:15:55.060 our assumptions can be really helpful. 00:15:55.270 --> 00:15:56.770 And we can think about it in the workplace too. 00:15:56.770 --> 00:16:01.060 Like for example, if you come in and you're gonna make a big presentation and 00:16:01.060 --> 00:16:05.589 your boss is in the audience and they look kind of bored, maybe a little bit annoyed. 00:16:05.709 --> 00:16:10.455 Like one very reasonable assumption you might make is that they didn't like the 00:16:10.455 --> 00:16:15.105 presentation, but if you don't have access to the fact that like they slept badly, 00:16:15.255 --> 00:16:19.275 they hit every red light, they didn't get to have their coffee first, all of those 00:16:19.275 --> 00:16:21.075 things might be at play in their mind. 00:16:21.075 --> 00:16:24.495 And they thought your presentation was great, but you might be out of sync then 00:16:24.495 --> 00:16:28.215 when you have a conversation afterwards about what just happened, if you come into 00:16:28.215 --> 00:16:33.045 that conversation feeling a little bit defensive or a little bit like, oh, like 00:16:33.045 --> 00:16:34.695 what didn't they like about this, right? 00:16:34.725 --> 00:16:37.900 And they don't know that you're thinking that 'cause they weren't paying attention 00:16:37.900 --> 00:16:39.095 to what was happening on their face. 00:16:39.780 --> 00:16:42.060 Matt Abrahams: So much richness in what you just said. 00:16:42.060 --> 00:16:46.440 I just wanna put an exclamation point to the, the impact media can have on all of 00:16:46.440 --> 00:16:48.300 our communication and the way we interact. 00:16:48.420 --> 00:16:51.150 When I asked you the question, what are things we can do to bring about 00:16:51.150 --> 00:16:55.980 synchrony beyond storytelling, what I heard you say is that expectation 00:16:55.980 --> 00:16:59.700 setting that we can do in advance can prime people to be more in sync. 00:16:59.700 --> 00:17:04.510 So it could be what we call the meeting or what we put in the meeting invite, 00:17:04.510 --> 00:17:08.890 and all of that could help people get to synchrony more quickly because 00:17:08.890 --> 00:17:10.360 you're setting those expectations. 00:17:10.630 --> 00:17:14.349 But I also heard you say that we have to check our own self expectations, 00:17:14.349 --> 00:17:16.360 the assumptions that we have going in. 00:17:16.450 --> 00:17:19.540 This happens all the time where I see a student who looks disengaged 00:17:19.540 --> 00:17:22.750 in my class, and it turns out they're actually very engaged. 00:17:22.810 --> 00:17:26.990 It has to do with the bad day they had or, or some other situation. 00:17:26.990 --> 00:17:29.899 And once I learned that, it allows us to get back in sync. 00:17:29.899 --> 00:17:33.530 So very helpful that there are things we can do in advance to prime 00:17:33.530 --> 00:17:36.679 others, but also things we have to do to ourselves to set ourselves up. 00:17:36.679 --> 00:17:37.600 I appreciate that. 00:17:39.299 --> 00:17:42.645 Well, Emily, before we end, I'd like to ask three questions of all my guests. 00:17:42.645 --> 00:17:46.455 One I create just for you, and the other two are similar for everyone I interview. 00:17:46.515 --> 00:17:47.475 Uh, are you up for this? 00:17:47.715 --> 00:17:48.105 Emily Falk: I'm ready. 00:17:48.345 --> 00:17:50.535 Matt Abrahams: So in all of the fascinating research that you've done, 00:17:50.535 --> 00:17:54.135 I'm curious, is there one finding that stands out as something that's 00:17:54.135 --> 00:17:58.665 just really impacted how you do things, affected your communication 00:17:58.665 --> 00:18:00.195 or, or where you are in the world? 00:18:00.570 --> 00:18:02.670 Emily Falk: I'll tell you a little bit about some of the work that 00:18:02.670 --> 00:18:06.480 we're doing right now that is most exciting and on my mind. 00:18:06.600 --> 00:18:11.490 I'm doing this work with Diana Tamir and Shannon Burns, and a team of amazing 00:18:11.490 --> 00:18:15.420 postdocs that's about conversation, and we talked a little bit in our 00:18:15.420 --> 00:18:17.390 conversation here about neural synchrony. 00:18:17.520 --> 00:18:22.375 But one of the things that's been fascinating to me is that neural synchrony 00:18:22.375 --> 00:18:26.635 in and of itself seems like it's a starting point, not the end point you 00:18:26.635 --> 00:18:29.274 want to strive for in a conversation. 00:18:29.365 --> 00:18:34.645 And what I mean by that is in research that Lily Tsoi and Sebastian Speer led, 00:18:34.794 --> 00:18:38.815 when people have conversations where they're either talking with a friend 00:18:38.815 --> 00:18:42.990 or with a stranger, the friends quickly get in sync, and then they use the 00:18:42.990 --> 00:18:47.190 rest of the conversation to explore all different kinds of topics and ideas. 00:18:47.340 --> 00:18:51.090 Whereas the strangers often spend a lot of the time in that kind of small talk 00:18:51.090 --> 00:18:54.690 space where they're trying to establish common ground and getting in sync. 00:18:55.050 --> 00:18:58.200 And then maybe not surprisingly, the friends end up enjoying 00:18:58.200 --> 00:19:01.190 their conversations more, on average, than the strangers. 00:19:01.340 --> 00:19:04.490 But the good thing is that when the strangers do that pattern that the 00:19:04.490 --> 00:19:07.670 friends did of relatively quickly getting in sync, maybe do a little bit 00:19:07.670 --> 00:19:12.080 of small talk, but then they explore lots of different topics and lots of 00:19:12.080 --> 00:19:16.070 different mental space, they end up enjoying the conversations more too. 00:19:16.375 --> 00:19:19.375 That's something that's really intriguing me now and kind of pushing me in 00:19:19.375 --> 00:19:23.095 conversations with particularly people that aren't my best friends, try to be 00:19:23.095 --> 00:19:24.775 a little bit more adventurous, right? 00:19:24.775 --> 00:19:27.775 Not like inappropriate, but just like try to be more curious. 00:19:27.955 --> 00:19:29.125 Matt Abrahams: That's really interesting. 00:19:29.125 --> 00:19:33.685 And this notion of getting in sync quickly can free you up to do other 00:19:33.685 --> 00:19:37.405 things, and it speaks to the power of icebreakers and other things that 00:19:37.405 --> 00:19:38.995 can help people really get there. 00:19:38.995 --> 00:19:41.545 Thank you for sharing that and how it's impacting what you do. 00:19:42.120 --> 00:19:45.420 Question number two, who's a communicator that you admire and why? 00:19:45.760 --> 00:19:48.750 Emily Falk: Tonya Mosley, who I talk about in the book because 00:19:48.750 --> 00:19:54.270 she has this amazing capacity to connect different people and ideas. 00:19:54.480 --> 00:19:57.000 She is a radio journalist. 00:19:57.030 --> 00:19:58.710 She hosts Fresh Air. 00:19:58.710 --> 00:20:03.570 She has an amazing podcast called Truth Be Told, and she's done just incredible 00:20:03.570 --> 00:20:07.980 work, bringing together different kinds of expertise and providing context 00:20:07.980 --> 00:20:09.960 for what's happening in the moment. 00:20:10.265 --> 00:20:15.425 Like when we look around and we're baffled by the political moment or by, you know, 00:20:15.425 --> 00:20:20.345 just how we function as humans, she's somebody who I think is incredible. 00:20:20.850 --> 00:20:21.930 Matt Abrahams: Thank you for sharing that. 00:20:21.930 --> 00:20:25.140 Final question, what are the first three ingredients that go into a 00:20:25.140 --> 00:20:27.270 successful communication recipe? 00:20:27.570 --> 00:20:30.750 Emily Falk: I love this question and there are so many ways to answer it. 00:20:30.870 --> 00:20:35.040 I'm gonna focus on sort of the three ingredients that the book centers on, 00:20:35.100 --> 00:20:40.080 which have to do with our brain's value system, our brain social relevant system, 00:20:40.230 --> 00:20:41.940 and our brain's self relevant system. 00:20:41.940 --> 00:20:46.360 And so when we think about a successful communication recipe, I think about 00:20:46.390 --> 00:20:50.650 all of the myriad possible ways that we can tap into those systems. 00:20:50.650 --> 00:20:54.370 So I think the recipe sort of starts with understanding how our brains work. 00:20:54.640 --> 00:20:58.390 An analogy that I've been really liking is that many of us can cook a basic 00:20:58.390 --> 00:21:03.100 meal, but if you understand something about how chemistry works, then that 00:21:03.100 --> 00:21:07.409 can help you swap out ingredients if you don't have all the right ingredients. 00:21:07.409 --> 00:21:11.669 Or it can help you diagnose where something went wrong in a baking project. 00:21:11.820 --> 00:21:16.290 And likewise, if we understand how our brains are working, I'm hoping that 00:21:16.290 --> 00:21:21.570 that also helps people, A, make sense of like why we do the things that we do and 00:21:21.570 --> 00:21:25.560 have a little bit more compassion for ourselves, and for other people whose 00:21:25.560 --> 00:21:27.330 behavior does not make sense to us. 00:21:27.510 --> 00:21:30.209 And then also that maybe it can help us sort of diagnose 00:21:30.209 --> 00:21:31.530 places that we can intervene. 00:21:31.909 --> 00:21:35.000 Matt Abrahams: You have done a great job of that today, helping us understand 00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.350 how our brains work and how that informs the choices we can make as communicators 00:21:39.350 --> 00:21:41.030 and perhaps the habits that we have. 00:21:41.209 --> 00:21:44.209 I really appreciate your insights and your time, and I wish 00:21:44.209 --> 00:21:45.530 you well with your new book. 00:21:45.590 --> 00:21:46.520 Thank you for your time. 00:21:46.729 --> 00:21:47.750 Emily Falk: Thank you so much, Matt. 00:21:47.750 --> 00:21:49.040 It's such a pleasure to talk with you. 00:21:51.889 --> 00:21:53.810 Matt Abrahams: Thank you for joining us for another episode of 00:21:53.810 --> 00:21:56.060 Think Fast Talk Smart, the podcast. 00:21:56.399 --> 00:21:59.310 To learn more about neuroscience and communication, please listen to 00:21:59.310 --> 00:22:03.659 episode 39 with David Eagleman and episode 101 with Matt Lieberman. 00:22:04.139 --> 00:22:09.149 This episode was produced by Katherine Reed, Ryan Campos, and me Matt Abrahams. 00:22:09.389 --> 00:22:10.889 Our music is from Floyd Wonder. 00:22:10.919 --> 00:22:13.320 With special thanks to Podium Podcast Company. 00:22:13.710 --> 00:22:16.920 Please find us on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. 00:22:17.070 --> 00:22:19.260 Be sure to subscribe and rate us. 00:22:19.470 --> 00:22:21.960 Also, follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram. 00:22:22.200 --> 00:22:26.220 And check out FasterSmarter.io for deep dive videos, English language 00:22:26.220 --> 00:22:28.440 learning content and our newsletter. 00:22:28.890 --> 00:22:32.550 Please consider our premium offering for extended Deep Thinks episodes, 00:22:32.820 --> 00:22:38.470 Ask Matt Anythings, and much more at FasterSmarter.io/premium.