Clinical psychologist and New York Times best-selling author Rick Hanson joins us to discuss how remarkably plastic our brains are, despite how fixed they often feel. We discuss what's doing on mechanistically when people change their minds, and what we can learn from this about how to be more open to change as individuals.
Want more Rick?
- Listen to Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson on Apple and Spotify
- Check out his books like Hardwiring Happiness and Neurodharma
About the hosts:
Thom and Aidan left boring, stable careers in law and tech to found FarmKind, a donation platform that helps people be a part of the solution to factory farming — regardless of their diet. While the podcast isn’t about animal welfare, it’s inspired by their daily experience grappling with a fundamental question: Why do people so rarely change their minds, even when confronted with compelling evidence? This curiosity drives their exploration of intellectual humility and the complex factors that enable (or prevent) meaningful belief change.
Thoughts? Feedback? Guest recommendations? Email us at hello@changedmymindpod.com
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I could learn and change for the better a little bit every day,
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and that was revelatory for me. That was like a metal learning
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in a way. I was learning about learning.
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I changed my mind about what my future could hold.
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I'm Tom and I'm Aiden, and you're listening to Change My
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Mind. Well, we explore the
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psychological forces that drive our biggest changes of belief
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and those that so often get in the way.
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Today we're joined by Doctor Rick Hansen, a clinical
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psychologist, senior fellow at UC Berkeley's Greater Good
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Science Centre, and New York Times bestselling author of
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books like Neurodrama and Hardwiring Happiness.
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He's also recently the founder of the Compassion Coalition, a
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new global non profit that's helping to build a world where
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people and planet are valued and cared for.
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Rick's work brings together ancient wisdom and modern
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neuroscience to help us to understand how remarkably
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plastic our brains are, despite how fixed they often feel.
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Through his concept of positive neuroplasticity, Rick offers
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insights into why our brains naturally cling to negative
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experiences while letting positive ones slip away, and how
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we can intentionally rewire these tendencies.
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In this episode we explore the paradox of why changing our
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minds can be so difficult when on a physical level our brains
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are quite changeable, and how we can all develop more flexible
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thinking. Rick, great to have you with us.
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I am so psyched about this conversation and the frame of
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how to change your mind for the better.
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Presumably because it can also be readily changed for the
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worse, which means changing your brain for the worse too.
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I'm super great. I'm eager to dive in.
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Great. Well, let's do it.
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So one of the things that comes up again and again with our
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guests is how hard most people find it to change their minds
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about important issues. But a lot of your work focuses
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on neuroplasticity, which is the idea that the physical brain
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that gives rise to the mind is really changeable.
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So could you start by giving the audience a bit of background on
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how the brain can change on a mechanical level and what drives
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these changes? OK, great.
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So the function of the nervous system, whose headquarters is
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the brain, is to process information, information
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processing system. So we have intangible but real
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information, meanings, signals, knowledge, memories, how to and
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so forth. Software being represented by a
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tangible, gooey, gushy physical system spread throughout your
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body with about 85 billion or so neurons, along with another 100
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billion or so support cells inside the coconut, about 3 lbs.
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About a kilo and a half of tofu like tissue inside your skull,
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which in which a typical neuron makes about several thousand
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connections on average with other neurons.
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It's just a little multiplying. Here we have several 100
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trillion little microprocessors inside the head, twinkling away
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moment by moment by moment. And as Charles Sherrington, a
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neuroscientist in the previous century, put it, like an
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enchanted loom. The brain is weaving the
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tapestry of consciousness like, is that freaking cool or what?
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So the nervous system, including the in very simple creatures
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that with whom we share fundamental aspects, including a
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tiny little worm, it's about a millimeter long that has exactly
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302 neurons in it. The nervous system is designed
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to be changed by the information flowing through it.
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That's learning in the very broadest sense.
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Whether it's the learning, literally, you can train a snail
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to go left rather than right at a junction because you go right
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and it's salty, and if you go left it's sweet, for example.
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So the brain is designed to be changed by our experiences.
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Much of that changing occurs outside of awareness in terms of
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the architecture of the nervous system, but we are particularly
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changed by our experiences. So how does that change process
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happen? There are many, many mechanisms.
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So one is we have these neurons firing, and there's a famous
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saying neurons that fire together can wire together.
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In other words, new connections can develop new synapses.
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Inactive synapses can wither away in a process called neural
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Darwinism. When each of us was about two or
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three years old, we had about three times as many synapses
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inside our head than we do today.
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It's not that we've gotten Dumber, although I wonder
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sometimes about myself. It's just that the stuff that
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wasn't needed withered away. Ebbs and flows of
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neurotransmitters like dopamine, oxytocin, norepinephrine,
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serotonin can change over time. There can actually also be
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changes in the expression of genes, little strips, little
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portions inside the molecules of DNA, inside the nuclei of cells,
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based on the experiences, based on the flows of information and
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thus the neural activity of of the of the animal, including us.
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For example, here, this is wild stuff.
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Let's just do a generation. So if you're if you were a rat,
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it's probably true for humans. If your grandmother was really
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stressed out as a baby rat, there would be changes in her
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brain as a result. OK, that's so far so good.
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Then when she has rat babies herself, she will pass along to
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them changed expressions of the stress response.
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That will make her rat babies even more vulnerable to stress,
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particularly sensitive and reactive to trauma, for example,
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independent of how she behaves. In other words, if the baby is
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taken from her at birth, its brain will have been changed
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epigenetically. And further, if her baby lives
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to maturity and has babies herself, that third generation
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grandchild of the stressed out grandmother rat will also have
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those epigenetic changes in its own brain passed along through
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generations. And you can think of the
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implications of that for populations and humans in the
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world today who have been historically terribly,
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atrociously mistreated Jewish people, historically enslaved
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people in my country, America, historically, you know, it can
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be changed for better or worse in all kinds of ways.
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And as you alluded to in the intro, the brain is biased
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toward being changed in effect for the worst, or toward
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negativity for adaptive reasons. Yeah, I mean, we definitely want
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to get into that that bias later.
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But first I want to dig into this seeming paradox where on
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the one hand we have this very malleable physical brain, and on
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the other, these the ideas and thoughts that emerge from it,
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which is so often resistant to change, in particular seemingly
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people's beliefs about themselves and their political
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beliefs. And So what explains this
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disconnect between the changeable brain and the quite
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unchanging mind? So let's see here, on the one
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hand, the brain is quite plastic.
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You know, there's and there's lifelong learning.
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And to me, one of the coolest things to kind of reflect on,
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including as someone with parents who have both, you know,
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passed away, is that during, even after the last breath,
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there is still neural activity inside the brain for the next
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two, 345 minutes. You know, as the lights inside
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gradually go out and who knows what kind of learning is
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happening there in those last few minutes.
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AB There's a tension in the nervous system between
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flexibility and repetity of response.
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So think about lizards or flies. Lizards have a complicated
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nervous system, but it's pretty inflexible.
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They're very quick, but they don't have much of A learning
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curve. Complicated primates like us, we
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can really reflect. We can slow down and reflect
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about a lot of things, but sometimes thinking about it and
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ruminating and perseverating and yadda yadda, could, woulda,
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coulda, shoulda and so forth slows us down from necessary
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action. So there's this tension between
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speed and complexity and Mother Nature is a tinkerer and you
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know, different species solve that problem in different ways.
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So we have that balance inside our own branch and a little of
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neuroanatomy. Your brain, my brain too, was
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evolved as it were, and from the bottom up, like a house with
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three floors, the lowest floor being the brain stem regions on
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down. Loosely associated with the
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stage of neural evolution through reptiles, OK.
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Then on top of that, we have the subcortex, the second floor of
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the House of the brain with parts like the amygdala,
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hypothalamus, basal ganglia and so forth.
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That really is associated mainly with kind of late reptilian
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evolution, but especially mammalian evolution.
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OK, call that the inner mouse. All right.
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And then we have on top of that the neocortex, which really has
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been built out in primate and especially human evolution, the
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third floor of the House of the brain.
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So we have these three floors and they rest on what's called
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the neural axis. Well, as you go down the neural
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axis speed increases, reflexive and automaticity increases, but
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the capacity for reflection and consideration of complexity
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really is minimized. You move further up and now
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we're more in the midbrain. You know, the inner mouse,
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right? We got the inner lizard, mouse
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and monkey, you know, doing a little better.
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Move all the way up to the humans.
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Much more capacity for learning. The higher up the neuro access,
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the greater the plasticity. You know, a person can learn a
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new phone number or idea just like that, but that learning
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rests on all this emotional somatic learning that's
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associated with those more ancient circuits.
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So the net effect is people rationally can hear new evidence
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like your own background and interest and, you know,
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compassion for our other animal cousins, right?
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People can hear that information and they they understand that,
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they recognize it, but it doesn't touch the lower regions
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of the brain, which have less plasticity.
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So when we talked about changing our mind, we need to talk about
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not just changing our cognitions, but changing kind of
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like the underlying basis of cognitive expectations,
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assumptions, frames of reference, paradigms and
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perspectives. And even more deeply talking
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about changing patterns of feelings and moods and
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underlying longings and desires, and even beneath that, the sense
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of identity and self. I think that really helped me to
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understand, OK, these certain things are easier to change than
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others. But I guess where where we this
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can sound confusing is we think about some things that seem on
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their surface to be almost at this top layer.
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So they're complex and heavy issues.
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So politics, I think is a great example of this, right?
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Like what is the right tax policy or something like this?
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It sounds like it should be existing up at the top, right.
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But so often Ezra Klein has this great book about and
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polarization where he kind of goes into it.
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Actually, politics is so much often about actually these
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really base things is about identity.
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It's about what kind of person you feel you are.
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And I, I think the example of diets, for example, it's not a
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thing like this where it's not just a question of what you have
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for dinner. It is all these identity
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questions about feeling you're a good person and you know, your
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traditions and all these things. And so maybe many of these
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aspects of ourselves that we would think are in this kind of
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changeable top layer are really rooted right down in this bottom
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identity layer. All right on super perceptive
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and true. Yeah, you know, I just, I'm
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thinking of an example where research has shown if you tell
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people, let's say affiliated with a particular party, that
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person X who leads the other party has said certain things or
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done certain things, they will like, their response typically
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will be, Oh yeah, what a jerk. That's that's phase one of the
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experiment. Then in phase two, you
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essentially say to them, oops, I'm so sorry.
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We got it wrong. We switched the cards.
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It was actually the leader of your party who said those things
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or did those things. What do you think now?
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Oh, yeah, he's my guy. I love him right, exactly what
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you're saying. So given that kind of, as you
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pointed out, Tom, so many of the most important issues I think to
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each of us are really tied up with, you know, our sense of
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identity and things that exist on this deep level.
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The kind of ideas that are quite changeable, Are they then just
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everything that's leftover, which is kind of them like kind
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of less important kind of trivial stuff?
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Is that what we're able to change our minds about?
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Because that seems like kind of a bit of a sad conclusion if so.
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It's really interesting. So on average, of all the
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qualities and factors psychologically that make up a
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person, roughly only about a third of them are based in
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heritable DNA based factors. The other 2/3 of who people
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become over the lifespan psychologically is based on life
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experiences, circumstances, and how they engage their own minds.
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That means that 2/3 or so is pretty, pretty up for grabs, you
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know, and therefore it's changeable.
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It's developed now in some ways, certain aspects might resist
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certain kinds of changes, but I think there's a lot of
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opportunity and there is a lot of evidence for people who
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actually have made quite profound shifts in their
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underlying mood, outlook, sense of self orientation to desire.
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Think about people who work through sobriety, dealing with
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deep issues there. Think about people who work
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through huge trauma, very affected there, you know, there,
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there are a lot of opportunities there.
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I think they're people who I was in half a cult in my 20s, people
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kind of breaking away from certain things.
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On the one hand, I think that's, that's really possible.
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But I think Hayden, you're, you're really getting at how can
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people help themselves to change for the better in ways that
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actually don't increase resistance, but soften
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resistance to change? How can we help other people
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change for the better, right? The pragmatics of this, that's I
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think what you're really getting at, right.
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Yes, for sure. One thing I wonder is whether
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we're better or worse at changing our minds that kind of
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different ages, and whether, when it comes to views that are
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formed at different ages, are those more changeable than
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others? Technically, there's a lot of
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neuroplasticity in the first few years and during adolescence.
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So those I think are really important periods for those of
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us who are interested like I am. I've gotten involved in
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compassion and, and one of the initiatives related to the
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Global Compassion Coalition is the Men and Boys Compassion
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Coalition, which includes a real focus on what it's like to be a
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boy in in the world today who often could use more compassion
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coming toward them, including in school settings, particularly
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for the third or more of the boys who are just naturally more
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active and even aggressive. And also think of the
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socialization that comes in boys.
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Oh, boys don't cry, you know, tough it up, blah, blah.
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So more compassion for them, which actually helps them
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develop more compassion as they grow up in demand for others,
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particularly in the teenage years.
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You know, that's a really plastic developmental period,
00:15:38
for example. It's also true though, as people
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continue in the lifespan, they do change their perspectives.
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So I I think there are opportunities there.
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Yeah, yeah. Because so most of our listeners
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are probably, you know, crusty old folks like, like, like us
00:15:51
that are, that are less changeable than they they once
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were. And so I'm interested to to
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learn about how they might be able to do that.
00:15:56
And I was watching a lecture of yours online about changing our
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minds and spoke about a bunch of relevant factors, which I want
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to I was hoping to ask you about maybe starting with a factor
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that I think people really underestimate in terms of its
00:16:07
influence on our ability to change our minds, which is our
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physiological state. You know, whether we're we're
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calm or on edge at a given moment or whether we're arrested
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or tired. This seems to influence our
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ability to reconsider our positions.
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And see, I was wondering if you could tell us a bit more about
00:16:20
this connection between physical state and cognitive flexibility?
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First off, understandably, when we're scared or angry, we're
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hurt or sad or physically in pain when we feel threatened.
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A lot of research, including that of Barbara Frederickson and
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others, it shows that perception narrows.
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And so if we want to help people be more open to change, it helps
00:16:43
to become more open perceptually.
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On the other hand, if we're in more in a good mood, if we're,
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you know, the acronym HALT when we're not hungry, angry, lonely
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or tired, not those things, people tend to be more
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receptive, tend to be more more open technically in the brain,
00:16:58
which is super cool. These, this research on rats and
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they share a lot of our own, you know, machinery shows that that
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when we're engaged in play, when we're being playful, there's
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kind of a cool playfulness here, you know, among us.
00:17:12
For example, neurotrophic factors are released, these
00:17:15
little gooey molecules in the brain that promote change.
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Neurotrophic means trophic means repairs and changes, essentially
00:17:24
growing. So I, I learned this as a
00:17:26
therapist. I've been a long time therapist
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and I used to have conversations with my clients and we'd be
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like, well, how are you today? You're kind of moping was saw by
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your mother, you know, moping dreary conversation, very flat
00:17:41
learning curve. Physiologically, on the other
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hand, we're active being on, not on, not bypassing anything
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obviously pointed and painful, but you know, more of an
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attitude of playfulness and creativity and upbeat change is
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much more likely to happen. So that's, those are
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physiological factors right there.
00:18:00
I think also social support is huge as you probably know, for
00:18:04
better or worse in my I won't name it, but in my experience in
00:18:08
my half a cult for three years in my 20s, I as a very stubborn,
00:18:13
determined, self willed, self reliant, quite privileged fellow
00:18:18
was astonished at how much I was shaped and tweaked by the social
00:18:23
pressure of the other people that I was among for worse.
00:18:28
Yeah, I think the truism that you were the average of your 5
00:18:30
closest friends I found to be really powerful in terms of
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motivating me to surround myself by people whose whose influence
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I appreciate in terms of how I think and my my values.
00:18:40
And you know, as you say, can obviously go in the negative
00:18:42
direction as well. I think all of us upon
00:18:45
reflection, can remember many times where how we were feeling
00:18:48
emotionally at a time when we had a disagreement had a huge
00:18:51
difference in terms of, you know, whether we were receptive
00:18:54
to changing our minds or not. And yet we still like to see
00:18:58
ourselves as these purely rational beings that just change
00:19:01
our mind based on the evidence. But we just like, know that's
00:19:04
not how it works. Why can't we kind of internalize
00:19:07
this truth about ourselves and start to kind of act
00:19:09
accordingly? It's a huge question.
00:19:12
One thing I could say is that I think a lot of the so-called
00:19:15
change business and therapy world and mindfulness training
00:19:18
and everything else in between operates in a growth one point O
00:19:21
model in which individuals are seen essentially as passive
00:19:26
vessels into which experiences and information are poured in
00:19:29
the hopes that some of it will stick.
00:19:31
And you can see in research on response to therapy as well as
00:19:34
other things, it's loosely what's called the rule of thirds
00:19:37
in medicine. About 1/3 of the people actually
00:19:40
shift. They get some kind of lasting
00:19:42
gain. About 1/3 of the people, yeah,
00:19:45
maybe a little bit. You have to look closely to see
00:19:48
it. And about 1/3 of the people
00:19:50
nothing or they're actually harmed in some way.
00:19:53
And related to that, a useful detail research on
00:19:57
psychotherapy, good standardized psychotherapy for depression and
00:20:01
anxiety over the last 40 years or more shows both I would say
00:20:07
decent average response. And in the metric of a of effect
00:20:11
sizes, it's .6 about well over 40 years.
00:20:15
There's no discernible trend of improvement in average response
00:20:18
to treatment in mental health treatment, certainly in America,
00:20:21
probably true in other countries.
00:20:23
We've got better at helping people have certain experiences,
00:20:26
but no better at helping them learn from their experiences
00:20:29
because learning is a two stage process.
00:20:31
You have to experience what you want to grow, including, let's
00:20:35
say, a shift of view. You have to experience it and
00:20:38
then you have to internalize it. It has to lead to a lasting
00:20:41
physical change in structure and function.
00:20:44
Otherwise, no learning, that's a really important point.
00:20:47
And people routinely be included often in the past, especially to
00:20:50
skip that second stage of deliberate internalization,
00:20:54
which really flattens the learning curve.
00:20:57
So that's a bit of a riff on some of the issue.
00:20:59
And I have been a strong advocate for how people can
00:21:02
shift into a growth 2 point O model in which influencers treat
00:21:06
people more as active agents in their own process of growth and
00:21:11
healing and learning and even awakening and teach them how to
00:21:14
actually change their brain for the better from the inside out
00:21:17
in evidence based ways that, you know, I've written papers about
00:21:20
and so on. So that is kind of a context
00:21:22
here. Like one reason why people don't
00:21:24
change. But a key to it in all that is a
00:21:27
stupid but profound joke and therapy world is how many
00:21:30
therapists does it take to change a light bulb?
00:21:33
How many? Only one, but the light bulb has
00:21:36
to want to change. That's very good.
00:21:41
That's central. That's central.
00:21:42
And and to that there has to be the capacity to step back from
00:21:45
your mind. You have to want to learn and
00:21:49
grow and budget, and you have to have the capacity to step back
00:21:54
from it so you're not continually swept away.
00:21:57
I guess practically then if we know that physiological state
00:22:01
has such a big influence on our ability to change our minds,
00:22:03
kind of what are the, what are the takeaways?
00:22:05
Then what would you advise somebody do if they're about to
00:22:07
go into a conversation where they suspect that their ideas
00:22:11
might be challenged and they want to show up in a really open
00:22:14
way? What might they do to, you know,
00:22:16
prime their physiological state for the best?
00:22:17
Well, listen to a few of your episodes that would move me in
00:22:20
the right direction. I would suggest that people
00:22:27
TuneIn to themselves, you know, and that takes a little bit of
00:22:30
mindfulness, a little bit of self-awareness, but it's not
00:22:32
that hard. And just ask yourself, are you
00:22:36
getting righteous? Are you getting rigid?
00:22:38
Are you building up a head of steam?
00:22:40
Are you identified with your case like a prosecutor about
00:22:44
something or against something? There's a proverb that describes
00:22:47
anger as with his honeyed tip and poisoned Barb.
00:22:52
You know, when anger gets in the mix, it's really hard because
00:22:56
anger, unlike the other three major so-called negative
00:22:59
emotions of sadness, fear and shame or feeling hurt, anger
00:23:05
releases reward molecules in your brain, dopamine and
00:23:09
norepinephrine, and it's energizing and organizing.
00:23:12
We kind of like it initially. So it's we don't really like
00:23:15
feeling sad or scared or inadequate anger.
00:23:20
Yeah, baby. So we have to be especially
00:23:23
careful, you know, don't underestimate the power of that
00:23:26
side of the force, as it were. So I think that's part of it.
00:23:29
Check in with yourself. And then, you know, you've,
00:23:32
you've really been prompting me to reflect on something that's
00:23:35
been a curiosity for me with people, which is why do people
00:23:40
act against their own interest, right?
00:23:43
Because I think a real question for people is to establish a
00:23:48
true commitment to their own greatest well-being.
00:23:51
In my clinical experience, half the people I saw were loyal to
00:23:56
others, but they were not very loyal to themselves.
00:23:59
They would respond to other people's suffering or needs.
00:24:02
They had kind of a more dismissive, whatever even
00:24:06
embarrassed attitude toward themselves.
00:24:09
They would be kind to others, very harsh to themselves.
00:24:12
They would encourage others to turn toward resources of
00:24:15
different kinds. Go to see your doctor, talk to a
00:24:19
therapist, get a dog would take a bubble bath, but they wouldn't
00:24:24
do it for themselves. Ideally, a person would be able
00:24:27
to step back at least a little bit from what's arising in their
00:24:31
own mind, their attitudes, their identification with their
00:24:34
positions, pounding, their points, all of which I know
00:24:38
well. They would step back from that a
00:24:40
little bit and then they would ask themselves what's in my own
00:24:44
best interest? I feel like it sounds to me like
00:24:47
what you're saying is the reason we we sometimes don't act in our
00:24:50
best interests and we sort of turn towards other people is, is
00:24:55
that not because as human beings, being part of a group
00:24:58
and belonging is really, really important to us?
00:25:02
And I think maybe in in today's society where we sort of often
00:25:07
celebrate our individuality, we can forget how sort of central
00:25:12
to our psychology being part of a group is.
00:25:15
And so might it be that in this situation we're we're choosing
00:25:18
that need of ours to be part of the group over maybe sort of
00:25:22
some of our other individual needs at that moment?
00:25:25
I think that's incredibly insightful and haunting.
00:25:28
You know, I don't know if you wanted to jump in there too,
00:25:30
Aiden. I could see you getting eager.
00:25:32
I. Mean, I think that is a really
00:25:34
good point, Tom. I suppose I in thinking about
00:25:36
what Rick was saying, I had another interpretation, which as
00:25:38
we were talking earlier about the distinction between kind of
00:25:42
knowing something intellectually and and feeling it and the
00:25:45
importance of feeling it for kind of really changing your
00:25:48
mind and acting in in accordance with that belief.
00:25:51
And I was thinking before this conversation about a number of
00:25:54
of beliefs where where that's the case.
00:25:56
And one really common one is people generally intellectually
00:25:58
know that like I am enough, I am worthy, but they don't feel it
00:26:03
and so they don't act accordingly.
00:26:05
So this could be an explanation for why these people aren't
00:26:07
acting in their self-interest, because they might
00:26:09
intellectually know the the facts that would lead them to to
00:26:13
look after themselves, but but they they just don't feel it.
00:26:16
That's right. They're feeling deserving or
00:26:18
entitled or that it's OK or that they're worth it.
00:26:21
Yeah, I think that's really true.
00:26:23
And so you, you asked in prep for the show for an example of
00:26:26
when I changed my own mind. And I want to describe 2 turning
00:26:30
points in my life, one in mid teens, probably about 15.
00:26:34
I know because I was reading Dune at the time and get into
00:26:37
Palma Deeb and I've been a guesarette and and basically I
00:26:41
was a very shy, dorky, anxious kid, socially awkward, who
00:26:46
skipped a grade and have a late birthday.
00:26:48
So I was very young going through school.
00:26:49
I felt like an outsider and really horrible about myself.
00:26:53
So here I am at 15. I'm reading Dune and I'm
00:26:55
reflecting on learning. There's so much about that book
00:26:59
is about these cool training processes that Paul was going
00:27:02
through. If you've never read the book or
00:27:04
seen the movie. But anyway, and I basically, I
00:27:06
realized it was kind of came to me.
00:27:09
I think I was walking down a corridor that as bad as my past
00:27:14
had been and as painful my present was every day and even
00:27:20
every minute, I could still learn a little.
00:27:24
I could grow a little. I could understand myself a
00:27:29
little better. I could watch other people and
00:27:31
kind of start tuning into how they were normally skillful as
00:27:34
adolescents and their relationships.
00:27:36
I could be a little less nervous around girls.
00:27:38
I could be a little more detached from my parents, who
00:27:41
are loving but quite critical. I could learn and change for the
00:27:45
better a little bit every day, and that was revelatory for me.
00:27:49
That was like a metal learning in a way.
00:27:51
I was learning about learning, adopting a growth mindset, as
00:27:54
Carol Dweck might put it. I changed my mind about what my
00:27:58
future could hold and the power I needed to engage myself
00:28:03
because no one could do it for me, you know, to learn a little
00:28:06
and grow a little every day. That was a turning point.
00:28:09
And then a related turning point, more specific, occurred.
00:28:13
I think I was probably early 20s.
00:28:15
I was reflecting on a situation in which I really stood up for
00:28:18
myself against somebody. And then I realized I had a
00:28:21
series of images, you know, like my life passed before my eyes,
00:28:25
my childhood in which I realized that growing up, I had been a
00:28:30
nerd but not a wimp. I changed my mind.
00:28:34
Yeah, I would love to spend a little bit more time on that
00:28:37
specifically because especially as a 15 year old that seems
00:28:41
remarkably perceptive to be able to sort of, you know, have a
00:28:45
revelation and then and then. Credit to Frank Herbert and
00:28:47
Dune. I don't know.
00:28:48
But yeah, but what is this process?
00:28:50
What does this slowing down and embodying look like or or feel
00:28:53
like? This is not about positive
00:28:56
thinking or rose colored glasses.
00:28:58
You know, as as we abide in the present, we can relate to what's
00:29:03
arising as a kind of a current flowing through US.
00:29:07
I think of myself or in some ways or sensor image as like a
00:29:10
sticky net, letting the pain, the sorrow, the stress, the
00:29:14
weird thoughts of other people, whatever, you know, the Daily
00:29:20
News flow through, you know, OK, flow through.
00:29:25
While those little moments and they're many each day of calming
00:29:30
or self worth or insight into another person getting a little
00:29:35
more skillful, you know, gratitude, maybe spiritual
00:29:40
openings, insights, moral conviction of a higher Rd.
00:29:44
That's really important to walk all that ha.
00:29:47
Then the net is stickier, you know, as the currents of time
00:29:50
flow through, right? And it, and it somatically it
00:29:54
feels, you know, there's a place for developing conviction about
00:29:57
new beliefs. You know, cognitive therapy
00:29:59
works to an extent, but much more important is, is new
00:30:03
feelings, desires, sense of self somatically grounded.
00:30:08
There's a famous therapist in the last century, Frieda von
00:30:11
Rachman said that the client does not need a new idea.
00:30:14
The client needs a new experience.
00:30:16
Yeah, there's this point about needing a new feeling.
00:30:19
Reminds me of another insight about changing minds which I
00:30:22
came across through your work, which is this distinction
00:30:25
between like top down and bottom up ways of changing your mind.
00:30:28
Could you say like what what that distinction is there?
00:30:30
Because it sounds like what you were just talking about is the
00:30:31
bottom up is that. Right, that's right.
00:30:34
So that's right. Top down.
00:30:35
I mean, very conscious, typically verbally expressed and
00:30:40
there's a sense of kind of inner willpower.
00:30:43
I'm pointing to the prefrontal reasons of my forehead, which is
00:30:48
sort of where the, you know, executive functions of the brain
00:30:51
are residing. And kind of like the chair of
00:30:53
the inner committee lives, there's a place for giving
00:30:56
yourself instructions just to, you know, for example, remind
00:31:01
yourself, come on, Rick, go get on the treadmill.
00:31:05
Bottom up engages deeper, more ancient and ultimately more
00:31:10
powerful parts of your brain and body in which it feels like you
00:31:16
essentially give yourself over to the longings of your heart.
00:31:20
You give yourself over to the best within you.
00:31:22
You give yourself over to higher purpose.
00:31:25
Let's say people are, you know, maybe spiritually spiritually
00:31:28
oriented, would say give yourself over to the mysterious
00:31:32
divine. Let's say something, OK.
00:31:35
And that feels like when it's top down, it's dualistic because
00:31:39
you're trying to get somewhere other than where you already
00:31:42
are. When it's bottom up, you're
00:31:44
giving yourself over to what is some some sense of of what of
00:31:49
how you already want to be. So what I'm taking from this is
00:31:55
that there seems to be when it comes to the forces that can
00:31:59
either help or hinder us in our efforts to change our mind,
00:32:02
there's like a feedback loop between these kind of top down,
00:32:05
top level of the brain, very like cerebral ideas, thoughts
00:32:09
instead of things. And this kind of bottom up,
00:32:10
what's going on in our, in our body and air quotes like
00:32:14
emotions and so on. And I think we've given quite a
00:32:17
bit of attention so far to the importance of the bottom up
00:32:19
stuff like making sure that you are not tired or hungry or
00:32:23
entering a conversation feeling agitated.
00:32:25
And we've talked, spoken about the importance of experiencing
00:32:28
and feeling something in order to change your mind.
00:32:30
But I'd love to do a bit more justice to the, to the top down
00:32:32
stuff because in particular, like I'm, I just think cognitive
00:32:35
behavioural therapy is great. And this is exactly that, right?
00:32:39
Where you're addressing distorted thoughts and
00:32:42
correcting them in the hope that if you can be thinking less
00:32:46
distorted things, you will start to in time feel less distorted
00:32:49
things. So yeah, but do you think that
00:32:50
bottom up is kind of ultimately more important or more powerful?
00:32:53
Or maybe you can say a bit more about the top down stuff.
00:32:56
That's great. And I think it's just
00:32:58
appropriate to think about levels of intervention and if,
00:33:01
you know, low hanging fruit and if you can get the benefit by
00:33:04
just plucking a bit of a low hanging fruit, like realizing
00:33:07
you're you're you were a nerd, but not a wimp, for example.
00:33:12
Awesome, you know, And yeah, no, super great question is how do
00:33:17
we help ourselves deep in conviction in the new ways of
00:33:21
thinking? And by thinking that would
00:33:23
include something I alluded to quickly in passing in the start,
00:33:26
new perspectives or frames of reference or broad meanings.
00:33:31
We give things, you know, so can you develop greater conviction?
00:33:35
You know, Aiden, you're in that top 1/3.
00:33:38
You know, people like you are enough to drag the average
00:33:41
result from CBT or any other therapy so that there's a
00:33:45
significant statistical difference between the treatment
00:33:49
group and the control group. But what about the one third, if
00:33:51
not so often, kind of half the people who just don't get that
00:33:55
much what's happening? What's the difference between
00:33:57
what the Aden's are doing and what many others are doing?
00:34:00
I suspect that when you hear the new idea, you're relating it to
00:34:04
a whole bunch of other related ideas, contextualizing it,
00:34:07
dropping it in, you know, understanding what else needs to
00:34:10
budget. There's a depth of semantic
00:34:12
processing just on the cognitive level that's going to increase
00:34:16
learning and change. Yeah, this reminds me of another
00:34:20
concept I I've come across through you actually, which is
00:34:23
you distinguish between kind of assimilating and accommodating
00:34:26
new information, right. So you talk about like
00:34:28
assimilating is like slotting the new information into a
00:34:31
familiar worldview without changing the worldview and
00:34:34
accommodating being about like genuinely revisiting our mental
00:34:36
frameworks. And I guess when you were
00:34:38
describing people who when they hear anything, they try and
00:34:42
understand it in terms of how it like how it connects with other
00:34:44
ideas and, and, and change those ideas to accommodate it.
00:34:47
Yeah. I guess when I heard about this
00:34:49
though, I was having a hard time thinking of like a real world
00:34:52
example where like the distinction between
00:34:53
accommodating versus assimilating becomes like
00:34:56
important and and what you found kind of helps people move from
00:35:00
just assimilating to like actually accommodating it to
00:35:03
transform their understanding. You can imagine some of it
00:35:05
related to the Netflix series Adolescence, which is incredibly
00:35:10
powerful and worth seeing. So for example, suppose as a
00:35:15
young male bodied person, you develop the very deep belief
00:35:21
that you know that the right way to be as a boy or a man is to
00:35:26
not be vulnerable and and certainly not cry.
00:35:30
OK, so then you had that belief. You didn't go into adulthood and
00:35:34
maybe you have a friend or you see, you watch Ted Lasso, you
00:35:38
know, you see some athlete, you know, crying after a defeat and
00:35:43
being comforted by somebody else.
00:35:45
And you go, oh, that's interesting.
00:35:47
But you don't really bud your frame of reference for how you
00:35:50
ought to be in your identity as a male body person, as a as an
00:35:54
adult man, let's say, you know, that's assimilating you, you
00:35:57
observe it. You can recognize that that
00:35:59
sports hero was crying, but it doesn't change your fundamental
00:36:02
frame. On the other hand, maybe
00:36:04
something happens. Maybe you're just shattered by a
00:36:08
certain kind of an event and then you end up in, let's say, a
00:36:11
group of other, maybe war vets or other people, maybe parents
00:36:15
who have children who've committed terrible crimes.
00:36:18
And you're in a support group and the tears are flowing and
00:36:20
yours are too. And you look around and these
00:36:23
are studly studs. These are manly dudes.
00:36:25
You would not want to mess with them in a dark alley.
00:36:27
And they're sobbing and it's OK. And your sense of who it's OK to
00:36:32
be as a man shifts right there. That's a powerful emotional
00:36:36
example of assimilation or accommodation, but I think one
00:36:39
that's relevant these days. One other topic that I would
00:36:42
like to touch on is your concept of positive neuroplasticity.
00:36:46
The idea is that despite our brains being really
00:36:48
neuroplastic, we have some structural biases like that we
00:36:51
tend to notice and internalize negative experiences more than
00:36:54
positive ones. So you've described our brains
00:36:56
as Velcro for bad experiences but Teflon for good ones.
00:36:59
So yeah, I wanted to like, kind of start with like, why?
00:37:02
What evolutionary reasons explain this kind of negativity
00:37:05
bias? And then we can get on to what
00:37:06
we can do about it. That's great.
00:37:08
So why the negativity bias? So think about being us living
00:37:15
in the Serengeti plains or back in Jurassic Park is a little
00:37:18
like rodent like creatures hiding out on the trees, right?
00:37:22
We had to get carrots and avoid sticks.
00:37:25
We had to find food mating opportunities as well as avoid
00:37:28
predators, threats and aggression inside our bands or
00:37:31
between bands. Well, if you don't get a carrot
00:37:33
today, you'll have a chance of wind tomorrow.
00:37:36
But if you fail to avoid that stick today, that Saber toothed
00:37:39
tiger, that angry alpha baboon in your troop, whack, no more
00:37:44
carrots forever. So that the brain you know is
00:37:48
really biased toward learning from the sticks of life, which
00:37:52
have more urgency and impact typically than the carrots of
00:37:55
life. So the brain automatically, my
00:37:57
brain, your brain does 5 things, scans for bad news outside and
00:38:01
inside, over focuses on it when it finds it.
00:38:05
That's number two. We've third, the brain
00:38:07
overreacts to pain into similar amounts of pleasure.
00:38:11
And then 4th, we over remember it.
00:38:13
One negative interaction has more impact in a relationship
00:38:17
than multiple positive ones. And then #5 the cortisol that's
00:38:22
released during stressful experiences and negative emotion
00:38:26
experiences. Negative emotion experiences are
00:38:29
natural, the way to relate to them as to accept them and flow
00:38:33
with them mindfully, dis identify from them, step back
00:38:37
from them. Have compassion for yourself
00:38:39
about them rather than squelch them.
00:38:41
When we do that, great. But if we don't, cortisol gets
00:38:45
released and in your brain it has a 1-2 punch, sensitizing the
00:38:49
alarm bell of the brain and weakening a nearby part called
00:38:52
the hippocampus that calms down the alarm bell and that creates
00:38:56
A vicious cycle, upsetting painful, stressful experiences
00:39:00
today, including loneliness. Loneliness has as much negative
00:39:04
effect on the brain and long term health as smoking half a
00:39:08
pack of cigarettes a day. Chronic loneliness, like whoa,
00:39:12
wow. So that's, that's the negativity
00:39:15
bias. It's really useful back in the
00:39:17
Stone Age. It's really useful if you live
00:39:19
in a war zone or grow up in a war zone.
00:39:21
Today there's a place for it. But for most people, most of the
00:39:25
time, it creates all kinds of unnecessary suffering,
00:39:28
unnecessary health burdens, and unnecessary conflicts with
00:39:31
others. Yeah.
00:39:33
So I guess one of the questions that this immediately brings up
00:39:36
for me is, as I understand it, your your heel framework and
00:39:40
some of your work is about how we can use the neuroplastic
00:39:43
neuroplasticity and positive things.
00:39:46
And I wonder if these negative experiences are so powerful.
00:39:50
And so we're sort of so over indexed on these, how
00:39:53
practically possible is it to really reshape our brain in a
00:39:56
positive way? We are not screwed.
00:40:00
I think that's we got to start. The negativity bias is Mother
00:40:03
Nature's well intended gift to us, and it has a place.
00:40:07
On the other hand, we want to be sure to control it rather than
00:40:11
letting it control us. And what it means, therefore, is
00:40:16
that if we deliberately tilt toward authentic, beneficial
00:40:22
experiences in the flow of daily life, most of which are fairly.
00:40:26
Brief and fairly mild and nonetheless real moments of
00:40:30
connection with others. I'm thoroughly enjoying this.
00:40:32
For example, the taste of chocolate, you know, finally
00:40:36
getting the kids to bed at the end of the day.
00:40:39
If we tilt toward those and appreciate their value for us,
00:40:43
tilt toward what is legitimately beneficial in the flow of daily
00:40:47
life, we level the playing field, in effect, given the
00:40:51
negativity bias. And we can do that many, many
00:40:54
times a day. And it's in our power to do it.
00:40:57
And at a time when we were pushed around by huge macro
00:41:01
forces. All right, I live in America.
00:41:04
Don't get me going. You know a lot of macro forces
00:41:07
these days. It's so great to appreciate that
00:41:10
inside your own being, you have a sacred power to lean into
00:41:14
whatever is beneficial for you and internalize it into
00:41:19
yourself. I think that's a really good
00:41:20
point. I really like that you emphasize
00:41:23
that this is not about sort of toxic positivity of pretending
00:41:26
that negative things don't happen.
00:41:27
But one crucial thing you said there was that we can create
00:41:30
lasting change. And I think this seems to be
00:41:33
maybe a little controversial because as I understand it,
00:41:37
there is some disagreement about like how much we're just
00:41:41
changing our short term well-being by these kinds of
00:41:44
practices and how much is actually this, as you say, this
00:41:47
long term change. So I wonder if you could just
00:41:49
explain to us what in your view the evidence is that that we are
00:41:53
really making a a meaningful long term change as opposed to
00:41:56
changing our sort of short term subjective feelings?
00:41:59
I, I hope you quote me on the podcast like you guys are
00:42:04
really, really, really, really good at those.
00:42:07
It's a pleasure to do this with. You It doesn't feel like we're
00:42:10
doing it. Well, yeah, really, really good.
00:42:13
In a way, you're getting at, I think what some people would
00:42:15
call the hedonic treadmill, this notion that even after positive
00:42:20
experiences, it might last a few hours or days.
00:42:24
People kind of revert to their their prior baseline.
00:42:27
Major negative experiences tend to take a lot longer to recover
00:42:31
from than major positive experiences.
00:42:33
You win the lottery, you're kind of back to your mood baseline.
00:42:36
Typically in a few days, maybe a week, you suffer a a devastating
00:42:41
injury or loss, months, if not years.
00:42:44
And where you're never, you're never the same.
00:42:46
You lose a child, you're never the same, for example.
00:42:50
So that's Part 1 in terms of the hedonic treadmill and Part 2,
00:42:54
there's tremendous evidence that people who have been, who are,
00:42:59
let's say, chronically addicted and, or depressed and or
00:43:03
anxious, they will make lasting gains in their life.
00:43:07
It might be hard won. It might be after, you know, 3
00:43:10
rounds of rehab and you know, some serious sobriety groups or
00:43:14
other kinds of things, you know, they can change.
00:43:17
And sometimes medication gets involved.
00:43:19
I'm very agnostic about skillful means.
00:43:21
Whatever works for you. I take Advil when I'm on
00:43:24
meditation retreats. I know how to meditate through a
00:43:27
bad headache, but I'm not really there for that.
00:43:30
That's a personal confession. So we already were seeing the
00:43:33
hedonic treadmill. We're not stuck on it.
00:43:36
And that over the lifespan, people often report an improved
00:43:41
mood, particularly as they get through the challenges of middle
00:43:44
adulthood, especially children, and before they face the really
00:43:48
serious challenges of old age. There's a general improvement of
00:43:52
mood on Everett. No treadmill there.
00:43:55
So I I would say never bet against the human heart, never
00:43:59
bet against the human brain. There's one last thing I'd like
00:44:03
to get into with you while we have you here because Tom and
00:44:05
I've been waiting for the episode where we have a
00:44:08
psychologist that we can ask about some of the psychological
00:44:11
phenomena that we are running into kind of in our day jobs.
00:44:14
Because we run this nonprofit called Farmkind, which is a
00:44:17
donation platform that allows people to support some of the
00:44:19
best charities working to fix factory farming.
00:44:22
And kind of at a glance, motivating people to donate to
00:44:24
these charities shouldn't really require changing minds all that
00:44:27
much. Because after all, most people
00:44:29
love animals and hate to see them suffer, and they think that
00:44:31
factory farming is cruel and it should be banned or restricted
00:44:34
in some way. But in reality, Farm Kind is
00:44:37
almost entirely about changing minds because we find that
00:44:40
people are really resistant to engaging with this issue of
00:44:42
factory farming at all because they think that if they do so,
00:44:45
you know they're going to be told that they have to change
00:44:47
their diet, like going vegan, that they're bad in some way.
00:44:50
And So what we spent a lot of time doing at Farm Kind is
00:44:52
reassuring people that they actually don't have to go vegan
00:44:55
to be a part of the solution to factory farming because anyone
00:44:57
can contribute to it, for example, by donating to evidence
00:45:00
based charities. So we know that at the moment
00:45:04
for people, the question of do I want to do something about
00:45:07
factory farming and do I want to change my diet are very
00:45:10
intertwined, but they needn't be.
00:45:12
And so we need to kind of tease these ideas apart and say, hey,
00:45:15
you can do something about this issue without changing your
00:45:17
diet. And the question is, is the best
00:45:20
way to do this to kind of explicitly say, hey, we know
00:45:24
changing your diet can be hard, but the good news is you don't
00:45:26
have to. So like address the elephant in
00:45:28
the room. Or should we ignore the elephant
00:45:30
in the room because if we bring it up, it's just going to make
00:45:33
this kind of cognitive dissonance they have more
00:45:35
salient And people are actually quite good at squashing down the
00:45:38
cognitive dissonance. You know, many people who love
00:45:40
animals but eat meat are doing this on a daily basis.
00:45:43
So let's just say, hey, donating is a great thing you can do and
00:45:46
not talk about the diet elephant in the room.
00:45:48
I'm wondering if you have any intuitions on which approach
00:45:51
makes sense here. First, there's a distinction
00:45:54
between empathy fatigue and compassion fatigue.
00:45:57
OK, empathy fatigue is real. We get flooded by the suffering
00:46:01
of others. Compassion fatigue arguably
00:46:03
doesn't actually happen because compassion has the bittersweet,
00:46:07
you know, the sense of the suffering, empathy for suffering
00:46:10
combined with caring. That's the sweet.
00:46:13
And research shows compassion releases reward molecules in
00:46:16
your brain that protect us from the burden of the empathy for
00:46:21
suffering, which is one reason why when we're doing compassion
00:46:24
practices such as even informal ones that you do, it's important
00:46:28
to emphasize the lovingness aspect, the caringness aspect,
00:46:32
the sweet, the tender, the loyal.
00:46:35
And and you know, frankly, this alongside it, a little bit of a
00:46:39
sense of 1's own virtue that one has caring and tender concern
00:46:43
for other beings. So that would be a way in first,
00:46:49
second, I guess they work. But myself, if I see these kind
00:46:54
of horrifying ads for disfigured children or these ads about poor
00:47:00
dogs or chickens in factory farms and all that, I just, I
00:47:05
can't think it's too much to process.
00:47:07
And I maybe they're effective, but I really wonder about the
00:47:10
research on that. One other thing that we've we've
00:47:14
been thinking about when it comes to our our work with
00:47:16
Farmkind is this thing we built called the compassion
00:47:18
calculator. The idea of which is, you know,
00:47:21
somebody will fill in information about their diet,
00:47:23
what how many serves the different animal products they
00:47:25
eat. And we calculate how much they
00:47:28
would need to donate to some of the best charities to do an
00:47:31
amount of good that's equivalent to if they kind of didn't eat
00:47:33
those products. It's kind of like like instead
00:47:35
of carbon offsets, Tom has been saying it's like karma offsets
00:47:38
kind of idea. Oh yeah, this is brilliant.
00:47:40
I love this. Got it.
00:47:41
Quite interesting responses from people.
00:47:42
So on one hand, some people really love this, they think
00:47:45
it's great. I think it might be something to
00:47:47
do with the fact that it is not telling them that they are, that
00:47:50
they are bad. It is giving them a solution to
00:47:52
if they, you know, don't want to change their diet but do want to
00:47:54
help. But then some people, they can
00:47:55
see the logic, but something about it is just kind of ick for
00:47:58
them and they can't get past that.
00:48:00
And yeah, I'm, I'm asking you to just like speculate wildly, but
00:48:03
I don't know if you have any thoughts on where the like
00:48:06
either the appeal or the kind of aversion that different groups
00:48:09
of people have to this, this kind of offsetting idea comes
00:48:11
from. Wow, we should talk more off
00:48:15
track, like I'm doing a comparable thing related to the
00:48:19
climate crisis and doing the foundation were to set up
00:48:25
literally a mass campaign. Imagine if millions of people
00:48:28
were donating to legitimate nonprofits along the lines that
00:48:31
you've described. Imagine a similar mass campaign
00:48:35
of people who recognize that Saudi Arabia and Exxon Mobil and
00:48:38
Donald Trump are not going to change their ways.
00:48:40
Meanwhile, we for about literally $0.50 a day, a typical
00:48:44
person in the affluent countries of the world can donate to
00:48:47
legitimate nonprofits that will remove the carbon that that
00:48:51
person cannot help but to be participating in the production
00:48:55
of because to the extent they live in the carbon economy.
00:48:58
Right? And then how do you deal with
00:48:59
the arguments about that, including fears of moral hazard
00:49:03
that somehow by people throwing money into these nonprofits,
00:49:06
they will feel justified in having a, you know, burger at
00:49:10
every meal. You probably know typical
00:49:12
person, if they eat a pound less beef a day, that'll reduce their
00:49:16
carbon footprint by about a metric ton a year, which is 10
00:49:20
to 20% of a typical person's carbon footprint.
00:49:24
Like, wow. We frame it as reduce and repair
00:49:27
and offset is a bit of a dirty word in some circles.
00:49:31
A lot of the issues around it have been dealt with already and
00:49:34
solved, but the bad reputation lingers in the climate world.
00:49:38
In your world, there might be some issues or that as well.
00:49:41
I think it's for people to realize that we are all embedded
00:49:46
in webs of life that are webs of benefit and harm.
00:49:51
Do you know the parable of the starfish?
00:49:53
Two people are walking down a beach and there's been a storm
00:49:56
and high tide and it's washed millions of little baby starfish
00:50:01
up onto the sand. And they're they are now dying
00:50:04
in the hot sun. And as these two people walk
00:50:07
down the beach, every few strides one of them reaches
00:50:11
down, picks up a starfish and flicks it back into the ocean.
00:50:14
And then they keep walking. After maybe an hour or so of
00:50:17
this, their friend is getting a little irritated.
00:50:20
They they seem distracted. They burst out, Why are you
00:50:23
doing that? Look, see all those starfish,
00:50:28
what you're doing is making no difference.
00:50:30
And the person replied, well, it's making all the difference
00:50:35
in the world to the ones I returned to the sea.
00:50:39
That's our opportunity in this life.
00:50:41
We can't save them all, so we save the ones we can.
00:50:44
Totally. To finish off, I just wanted to
00:50:46
ask if someone had just one take away from our conversation about
00:50:50
changing their mind. Like what should it be?
00:50:52
Decide to do it. I mean, really?
00:50:55
Yeah. Be be that light bulb.
00:50:57
Decide to do it and take pride and feel glad.
00:51:00
Be glad that you're someone who is exercising autonomy.
00:51:05
You're being kind of ballsy and badass inside your own mind.
00:51:08
You're not. You're not being the puppet of
00:51:10
your own history. You're not being the puppet of
00:51:12
the negativity bias. You're not being the puppet of
00:51:15
the group influences that Tom talked about.
00:51:17
You're you are your own person and you are deciding for
00:51:22
yourself what's in your best interest to to really believe
00:51:27
and to feel and to want and to be.
00:51:30
And then know that if that is what you want, there are very
00:51:33
simple methods you can use and help you establish increasingly
00:51:38
and be lived increasingly by what is wise and true and good
00:51:43
for you and good for others too. Amazing.
00:51:45
Well, thank you so much, Rick. This has been a really
00:51:47
fascinating conversation. I feel like we could sit and
00:51:49
talk for hours, but we can't. So next time.
00:51:56
That was a a well end of a conversation.
00:51:58
What did you take away from that, Tom?
00:52:01
Yeah, it was. It was really interesting.
00:52:03
And so I've never really thought about this question of changing
00:52:10
my mind in the context of the actual physical structures of
00:52:14
the brain. And for me, what was really
00:52:16
interesting is this focus on how important the emotional and
00:52:24
identity aspects of my beliefs are and then really tying that
00:52:31
in to the physical structures of the brain.
00:52:34
And what's interesting, if this is true, is it has all kinds of
00:52:37
implications about how easy it is for us to change our minds
00:52:40
about all kinds of things, right?
00:52:42
We talked about politics. We talked about, you know,
00:52:44
gender identity. We talked about lots of
00:52:46
interesting things there. And if it is really rooted in
00:52:50
these kind of like lower lizard parts of the brain, then not
00:52:55
only do we need to use different tools to get at those and, and
00:52:59
change maybe some of our own limiting beliefs and also try to
00:53:03
persuade other people through emotional means and so forth.
00:53:07
But also we have to accept that these are going to be harder to
00:53:09
change than things that kind of exist at the at that top part of
00:53:12
the brain that are purely a matter of kind of intellectual
00:53:17
thoughts. Yeah, absolutely.
00:53:19
I think Rick is really right to emphasize the bottom up ways of
00:53:23
changing our minds because people continue to model
00:53:26
themselves as being these rational beings that just look
00:53:28
at the evidence and and go where it leads and don't pay nearly
00:53:32
enough attention to their emotional state.
00:53:34
And things like have they slept enough the night before?
00:53:36
Are they hungry having a big impact on whether or not they're
00:53:39
able to change their mind. But the top down ways of
00:53:42
changing our mind, despite being overrated by most people are
00:53:46
still very important. Cognitive behavioural therapy or
00:53:48
CBT is probably the most evidence based psychological
00:53:52
intervention that we've found so far in terms of actually
00:53:54
working. And it works at the level of
00:53:55
intervening in people's thoughts with the idea that it will
00:53:58
affect their feelings downstream of them.
00:54:01
And we have new research coming out about this all the time.
00:54:03
Like I was listening to a really interesting podcast with David
00:54:06
Burns, the psychologist as a guest and he has this mental
00:54:09
health app. The beautiful thing about an app
00:54:11
is you can capture so much data, and he's been able to, for the
00:54:15
first time, get quite a clear image of what comes first, the
00:54:19
chicken or the egg. Did the thoughts affect the
00:54:20
feelings or vice versa? And at least in this study, in
00:54:23
the context of people's negative thoughts about themselves, he
00:54:27
found that the effect of negative thoughts on feelings
00:54:29
was actually far larger than the effect of negative feelings on
00:54:32
thoughts. Yeah, that study is really
00:54:35
interesting. I think it really highlights
00:54:37
that it's not either or, right? It's not purely about emotions.
00:54:41
It's not purely about thoughts, but we're going to need to
00:54:44
address both the emotional and the the conceptual parts of of
00:54:49
our ideas and our our thoughts if we're going to change our
00:54:52
minds or change other people's minds.
00:54:55
Sounds hard, but I guess that's what we're going to have to do.
00:55:01
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00:55:03
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