Resisting Influence in an Over-Influenced World

Why are we so susceptible to persuasion? In this episode of The Curiosity Shop, Brené Brown and Adam Grant discuss a tip Brené picked up from Seventeen magazine in the ‘80s and end up exploring why we fall for misinformation and persuasive messaging. They examine how vulnerability makes us more receptive to fear-based messaging, how appeals to authority can sometimes stand in for real evidence, and why recognizing misinformation isn’t always enough to protect us from it. Brené and Adam also consider the role of belonging, including the ways our desire for connection, community, and shared identity can make certain ideas especially persuasive. Along the way, they develop a practical framework for resisting unwanted influence: recognize your vulnerability, build your persuasion literacy, and trace information back to its source. Vibe: The Secrets of Strong Connections in a Lonely World - Adam Grant, 2026, Viking MythBusters: Rinsing Your Hair In Cold Water - Into The Gloss, 2015 I Washed My Hair With Coca-Cola (and Other Teen-Magazine Beauty Experiments) - Seventeen Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die - Chip Heath & Dan Heath, 2007, Random House Free Resources, including 'Making Presentations That Stick' - Chip Heath & Dan Heath, HeathBrothers.com Jayne Modean - Wikipedia contributors, Wikipedia Alzheimer's Association 24/7 Helpline, 800-272-3900 - Alzheimer's Association Dr. Cialdini's Biography - Influence at Work Dispelling the Illusion of Invulnerability: The Motivations and Mechanisms of Resistance to Persuasion - Stanford Center on Longevity, 2011 Resistance to Persuasion - Dolores Albarracín & A. Karan, 2022, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology Dr. Jessica Knurick - Jessica Knurick Jessica Knurick's Reaction Video - Jessica Knurick, Facebook A Public Health Expert Keeps Going Viral on Instagram for Delivering This Very Simple Message - Scott, 2025, Vox What's the Difference Between Physicians and Naturopaths? - American Medical Association, 2024 Appeal to Authority Fallacy: When Expertise Becomes a Logical Trap - Logically Fallacious, 2026 Evidence-Based Practice: Levels of Evidence - Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Library Evidence-Based Management - Jeffrey Pfeffer & Robert Sutton, 2006, Harvard Business Review White House Moves to Take Control of NIH Scientific Grants - The New York Times, 2026, The Philadelphia Inquirer 'Warning: This Image Has Been Digitally Altered': The Effect of Disclaimer Labels Added to Fashion Magazine Shoots on Women's Body Dissatisfaction - Marika Tiggemann, Zoe Brown, Mia Zaccardo & Nicole Thomas, 2017, Body Image The Sleeper Effect in Persuasion: A Meta-Analytic Review - G. Tarcan Kumkale & Dolores Albarracín, 2004, Psychological Bulletin The Mirror-Neuron System - Giacomo Rizzolatti & Laila Craighero, 2004, Annual Review of Neuroscience Social Media Posts About Medical Tests With Potential for Overdiagnosis - Brooke Nickel and colleagues, 2025, JAMA Network Open We Analysed Almost 1,000 Social Media Posts About 5 Popular Medical Tests. Most Were Utterly Misleading - Nickel & Moynihan, 2025, The Conversation Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - Robert Cialdini, 2021; first published 1984, Harper Business The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It . . . Every Time - Maria Konnikova, 2016, Viking How to Know If You're Being Lied To - Khazan, 2016, The Atlantic Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments - Justin Kruger & David Dunning, 1999, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Recursive Self-Improvement and Agentic AI: Fear of the AI Singularity - HackerNoon, 2026 How Do AI Companies 'Fine-Tune' Policy? Examining Regulatory Capture in AI Governance - Kevin Wei, Carson Ezell, Nick Gabrieli & Chinmay Deshpande, 2024, AIES-24 Proceedings George J. Stigler, 'The Theory of Economic Regulation' - Christopher Carrigan & Cary Coglianese, 2015, Oxford Handbook of Classics in Public Policy and Administration The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories - Karen Douglas, Robbie Sutton & Aleksandra Cichocka, 2017, Current Directions in Psychological Science Powerful Pharma and Its Marginalized Alternatives? Effects of Individual Differences in Conspiracy Mentality on Attitudes Toward Medical Approaches - Pia Lamberty & Roland Imhoff, 2018, Social Psychology People with a Conspiracy Mindset Resist Childhood Vaccination, Study Shows - Annenberg Public Policy Center, 2023 COVID-19 Misinformation: Scientists Create a 'Psychological Vaccine' to Protect Against Fake News - van der Linden & Roozenbeek, 2021, The Conversation LinkedIn Post on Collective Vulnerability - Brené Brown, 2020, LinkedIn Brené on FFTs - Brené Brown, 2020, Unlocking Us The Group Polarization Phenomenon - David Myers & Helmut Lamm, 1976, Psychological Bulletin Group Polarization - EBSCO Research Starters Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone - Brené Brown, 2017, Random House Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity - Sander van der Linden, 2023, W. W. Norton How 'Prebunking' Misinformation Works - CBS News / 60 Minutes, YouTube Bad News - Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab, (Game that teaches manipulation tactics) Lump: A Memoir in Ineloquent Reflections - Allison Sweet Grant, 2026, Little, Brown and Company National Breast Cancer Foundation - National Breast Cancer Foundation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:18Brené Brown?

  Hi, Adam.

• 1:19Adam Grant?

  Hey, Brene.

• 1:21Brené Brown?

  How are you?

• 1:22Adam Grant?

  I'm good. How are you?

• 1:24Brené Brown?

  Good. Are you gearing up for your book tour?

• 1:27Adam Grant?

  I am, whether I like it or not.

• 1:29Brené Brown?

  I'm excited for you. More to come on that, y'all. I had this weird idea for a podcast topic. Adam was like, oh, my God, I love this. It has gone from funny, in my mind, to I am enraged.

• 1:47Brené Brown?

  So.

• 1:48Adam Grant?

  Yeah, I just, I just want you to know, you brought this on yourself. I contributed nothing to the rage.

• 1:55Brené Brown?

  No, you did.

• 1:56Adam Grant?

  Really?

• 1:57Brené Brown?

  You did. You have no idea how many conversations that you and I have had about this that you were not a part of.

• 2:02Adam Grant?

  Oh, that's interesting. I didn't know you could have conversations with me without me.

• 2:06Brené Brown?

  Oh, you need to meet my husband. Like, he'll say, you seem weird. I'm like, no, we're fine. It's just, it was a difficult fight, but I'm glad we reconciled, and I'm glad that you agreed with me. And he's like, do I need to be read in or can we just move forward? And I was like, no, I think we're good.

• 2:26Adam Grant?

  There is so much more going on in your head than mine.

• 2:29Brené Brown?

  Oh, yeah, no, for sure.

• 2:32Brené Brown?

  Welcome to The Curiosity Shop.

• 2:34Adam Grant?

  A show from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

• 2:42Brené Brown?

  Okay, so here's how this podcast started, y'all. I tell Adam that I saw a funny meme on Instagram that said, am I the only one that still, like, rinsing my hair with cold water to close the cuticles of my hair and make it shinier? Because I read that in 1983 in Seventeen Magazine. And I told Adam that I thought it was so funny because I still do that because I read the same thing in Seventeen Magazine.

• 3:16Adam Grant?

  Well, I don't do that, and I feel like hair is going better for you than it has for me, so maybe I missed the boat here.

• 3:24Brené Brown?

  No, it's, so I called Adam and I said, I want to do a podcast on why we're so susceptible to tricks and tips that seem easy and hackable and doable. And I have held on to that for, let me just do the math in my head, okay, 40 years. Like, there's other things I read in Young Miss and Seventeen Magazine when I was in middle school and high school that I am immovable on. Thoughts?

• 3:59Adam Grant?

  Well, the first thing that comes to mind is, did you ever read Made to Stick by the Heath Brothers?

• 4:04Brené Brown?

  No, tell me about it.

• 4:06Adam Grant?

  Oh, it's, I think it's one of the best evidence-based books ever written on teaching, communication, and it's all about how ideas become memorable and why they lodge in our brains and we don't let them go. And they, they boiled a lot of the research down to six principles, which they, I think, spelled out as success with one S at the end. So if I remember correctly, they are simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotion, and story.

• 4:32Brené Brown?

  Oh, my God, that's so good. Say it again.

• 4:35Adam Grant?

  So, simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotion, story. You don't have to check all those boxes, obviously, but I'm just thinking back to what you read in Seventeen. Maybe at the time, you saw it as a highly credible source. I don't know, maybe less now.

• 4:51Brené Brown?

  I mean, Jane Modine was on the front of it. She was a supermodel of the late 70s. I mean, who would, who is a young girl, fifth-generation Texan? Who would I be to question a magazine that had Jane Modine on the front and an entire spread of Noxima? Okay, so this is interesting about ideas that stick because it started as what I thought would be a funny podcast. And then it turned into, I cried for two hours over the weekend when I was thinking about it, and I'm going to tell you why. Stay with me. When my sisters and I were caregiving for my mom,

• 5:34Brené Brown?

  and I think we've talked about this before, my Instagram feed became flooded with, and you have to remember that, like, Ashley and Barrett and I were caregiving for my mom, but my mom and I had done the caregiving for my grandmother. Both 77 years at onset, both devastating. And you know, and the thing you're thinking about is, of course, you're thinking about caring for your mom, but you're also thinking like, shit, am I on a clock? Am I on a dementia clock? And so my feed became full of these advertisements and influencers saying things like, are you a caregiver for dementia, a dementia parent? And here's what you can do.

• 6:19Brené Brown?

  And I remember I bought a couple of things and I threw my phone a couple of times. And so I know it seems like a leap from Seventeen Magazine in how to get shiny hair. But one of the things that this brought me to was an article that I read 20 years ago. It was, it's a peer-reviewed article. Are you familiar with Robert Cialdini, the persuasion person?

• 6:48Adam Grant?

  Bob Cialdini is one of the reasons that I became a psychologist.

• 6:51Brené Brown?

  What the frick?

• 6:53Adam Grant?

  Yeah, I, when, okay, so.

• 6:56Brené Brown?

  What the frick?

• 6:57Adam Grant?

  Quick backstory. First semester of freshman year of college, his book, Influence, is assigned both for my Psych One class and also for my writing seminar on social influence. I found it so fascinating, I read it for both classes. Then I called home and told my family they needed to read it. And when I got to grad school, I had an assignment to interview a scholar I admired and seek their career advice. And I cold emailed Bob, and he responded and hopped on the phone right away. And he's sort of been a mentor from afar for nearly a quarter century since then.

• 7:32Brené Brown?

  You and I have such weird synchronicity and kismet sometimes. You'll say something like, man, this study I just saw. And I'm like, I was in her doctoral cohort. Yeah, it's like, yeah, I'm a subject in that study. Okay, so here's what's interesting. And I'm so excited to talk about this with you. So Brad Sagaran, do you know Brad Sagaran? Do you know all these people?

• 7:56Adam Grant?

  I know the name, I don't know him.

• 7:57Brené Brown?

  Okay. So they wrote an article, and you'll know why I was interested in it because the title of the article was "Dispelling the Illusion of Invulnerability." And I'm going to just give listeners and watchers a simpler rendition of the study. What they found was in order to reduce our susceptibility to misinformation, you need to both believe that you are vulnerable to it, and then you have to have skills to deconstruct it. Neither of those alone is enough.

• 8:40Brené Brown?

  So, one, you have to admit that you're susceptible. And two, you have to be able to have some literacy around deconstructing what you hear. Does that make sense to you?

• 8:55Adam Grant?

  It's so interesting because, you know, when you were, when you were talking about the parallel between what you went through with, with your mom, which I'm so sorry for, by the way.

• 9:05Brené Brown?

  Thank you.

• 9:06Adam Grant?

  It's brutal. And the connection between that and Seventeen Magazine, like, oh, well, what those two situations have in common is they're preying on your fears.

• 9:14Brené Brown?

  Yes.

• 9:15Adam Grant?

  And you are in a vulnerable emotional state, whether it's worrying about your, your mom and your future or whether you're worried about your hair and whether, unlike me, you're going to keep it. And.

• 9:29Adam Grant?

  And so I think that nobody wants to feel vulnerable in those situations. And so a lot of times we get duped because we don't even realize we're susceptible. And so what you just said, I think, captured, it's so important to recognize, I am vulnerable right now. I am exactly the kind of person they're trying to target.

• 9:49Brené Brown?

  Yes.

• 9:50Adam Grant?

  But it feels like admitting weakness, even though it enables us to be stronger.

• 9:55Brené Brown?

  Yes. So it's so interesting. This is why, like, oh, my voice is shaking. I get so effing mad. This is why it's so upsetting to me. Because it's so hard to acknowledge our vulnerability in a space where we're vulnerable. Like, if I'm caregiving for my mom and everybody that is watching or listening, who is caregiving, not just for someone with dementia, but potentially any, you know, end of life disease, like, you're changing diapers. This is like humanity at a level that you did not know you could do.

• 10:40Brené Brown?

  Like, you are, you are standing in a room crying, taking a deep breath out of earshot and eyesight of the person you're helping. And you're saying to yourself, you can fucking do this. Do not be a coward. You can do this. You know? It is torturous. And so you are so vulnerable that in the moment when the ad slips by on Instagram, it's almost impossible to say, oh, I'm vulnerable here. Because if you let yourself be vulnerable, you can't get out of bed in the morning.

• 11:13Brené Brown?

  Do you know what I'm saying?

• 11:14Adam Grant?

  Yeah. And you're almost undermining the self-talk that you were just doing to say.

• 11:17Brené Brown?

  Exactly.

• 11:18Adam Grant?

  Toughen up. You can do this.

• 11:20Brené Brown?

  You can do this. I remember this moment where my grandmother was in San Antonio and my mom and I were trying to figure out, and she was in this terrible, just an indictment of the healthcare system in the US. She was in this terrible situation where she had been a beauty operator her whole life, you know, a hairstylist. Her husband was a Teamster and a forklift driver in a brewery, Pearl Beer, doesn't get more Texas, San Antonio than that. Yet they had enough income that they couldn't get help and not enough income to pay for, you know, assisted living or, you know, anything like that. They were in that place and we were trying to figure it out. And she was at home at the time, which was not tenable because she was a smoker.

• 12:03Brené Brown?

  This is my grandmother, who I think would have liked your grandmother, the maximalist, you know? And she was a smoker. So we knew we couldn't keep her at home long because she was going to burn down the house. Like, there would be cigarettes lit all over the place when I came home, falling out of ashtrays. And I was like, I need to bathe her. And I was 21, you know? And I was like, oh, my God. Like, no. You know? And so the self-talk and the get tough, and probably maybe as an older person, I understand the self-talk is like, be vulnerable and it's okay. But that's not the self-talk that's ever worked for me. So I think you're right.

• 12:44Adam Grant?

  Ironically.

• 12:44Brené Brown?

  Yeah, no, I.

• 12:47Adam Grant?

  It should. If it works for anyone, it should be you for today.

• 12:50Brené Brown?

  No, this is my me-search. Leave my me-search alone.

• 12:55Brené Brown?

  So what is interesting is in this study that Cialdini and Sagarin did together, the takeaway is for every one of us to say, I'm not outside the reach of persuasion.

• 13:16Brené Brown?

  I have to learn to examine what's persuading me.

• 13:20Adam Grant?

  So good.

• 13:22Brené Brown?

  Does that make sense?

• 13:23Adam Grant?

  Because then you can figure out your vulnerabilities.

• 13:25Brené Brown?

  Right.

• 13:26Adam Grant?

  This makes so much sense coming from Bob and his team, too, because his work on influence and persuasion has been picked up by marketers and salespeople and tons of people who are trying to, in some cases, like, exercise influence and in other cases, manipulate. And Bob is always the one to raise his hand and say, I didn't want this to be used as a weapon. I actually started studying this for self-defense because I remember him saying, like, all of my life, I have been the one who gets taken advantage of. And I realized I needed to figure out, what are the principles that people are using so that I can put my guard up? But I love this extra layer that you're bringing in of, let me figure out where I am vulnerable.

• 14:11Adam Grant?

  What is it that appeals to me?

• 14:14Brené Brown?

  So there's, I could go in a thousand directions and we could both go in the direction of weaponizing work. Because I think my work's been weaponized, your work has been weaponized, anyone that does work has been weaponized. I mean, for God's sake, I mean, specifically for God's sake, the Bible's weaponized all the time. So it's like, you can weaponize anything, right? One of the things where I got, thinking about my own experience as a caregiver, but then, do you know Jessica Nurek, Dr. Jessica Nurek? She's a PhD. She, I think she also has a master's in nursing. She's a research, and she, she kind of, what is it called when you show a video and then you're watching the video and then you comment on it on Instagram? Like a play-by-play of videos? Yeah.

• 14:57Adam Grant?

  Oh, a reaction video?

• 14:58Brené Brown?

  A reaction video, yes. She does these.

• 15:01Adam Grant?

  I don't know her, no.

• 15:02Brené Brown?

  Okay, you should look her up. She's great. So yesterday, I saw this video from her. And there's a guy, and he's standing in an aisle of a store, and he says, toxic products for newborns that I'd never allow in my house as a naturopathic doctor. And then Jessica stops, Dr. Nurek stops it, right after he says that. So all he said so far is, like, he points behind him on the shelves, toxic products for newborns that I'd never let in my house as a naturopathic doctor. And then Dr. Nurek stops and says these things.

• 15:44Brené Brown?

  One, vulnerable population, parents of newborns.

• 15:49Adam Grant?

  Yep.

• 15:50Brené Brown?

  Two, fear-based hook. Like, is there anything more fear-based than toxic products for newborns? And then three, she says, an appeal to authority versus any actual evidence.

• 16:05Adam Grant?

  That's such a great deconstruction of the kind of message that too many people are susceptible to, including us.

• 16:11Brené Brown?

  Yeah. So, like, I've got shaky-legged. That's what we call it in my family, because 50% of my family's got shaky-legged and the other 50 doesn't. I'm usually the 50 that doesn't have shaky-legged. And I'm like, hey, collection of shaky-legged people, you're levitating the table here. But I've got it right now because I'm all hyped up. So let me walk you through this like a transformer. Fear-based hook.

• 16:37Brené Brown?

  Toxic products for newborns.

• 16:40Brené Brown?

  Immediately, my capacity for vulnerability is corroded because I'm in fear now. So I'm starting to armor up. Oh, my God, I've got a newborn. Am I giving my baby something poisonous? Appeal to authority. Oh, my God, he's a doctor of some sort. He would know. Oh, oh, my God, he's standing in a store where I shop. It's like, this is where the grifting is so effing powerful. Because if you combine my vulnerability of my situation and circumstance with a fear-based hook and an appeal to authority, there's nothing left in me to look for evidence.

• 17:24Brené Brown?

  Are you trapping what I'm saying in my nuts?

• 17:27Adam Grant?

  No, I think this is, this is powerful. And, you know, to link it to something you said earlier. Okay, so I guess I'm imagining a different approach to opening up Instagram. Starting with, okay, I recognize that I'm vulnerable to certain fears and I need to know what those fears are. And then when somebody appeals to one, instead of immediately responding to the emotion, just pausing to ask, what is this person trying to sell me? What are they trying to persuade me of?

• 17:57Brené Brown?

  Yes.

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• 19:47Brené Brown?

  Okay, I have this sentence that I wrote down. A confident recommendation is not the same thing as real evidence.

• 19:56Adam Grant?

  I think about this all the time.

• 19:58Brené Brown?

  Okay, say more, say more. I have to have some iced tea, baby. The test in me is thirsty.

• 20:04Adam Grant?

  All right, so I think where it jumps out at me immediately is seven out of 10 doctors recommend. I don't care what seven out of 10 doctors recommend. I want to know what seven of the 10 studies showed.

• 20:20Brené Brown?

  Hmm.

• 20:23Adam Grant?

  Those are two very different questions.

• 20:25Brené Brown?

  Two different things.

• 20:26Adam Grant?

  Very different. And in evidence-based medicine, and now evidence-based management too, there's a hierarchy of levels of evidence. And at the very bottom of the hierarchy is expert professional opinion. And at the very top would be a meta-analysis, a study of studies of good randomized controlled trials with double-blind placebo. And we don't always get that, but we should be pushing for better evidence than here is the opinion of a supposedly trustworthy professional. You should defer to it.

• 20:59Brené Brown?

  Yeah, check the authority. I gotta tell you, I mean, this makes me really nervous about the Trump administration taking over NIH. Like.

• 21:08Adam Grant?

  I mean, wait, I'm sorry. Are you saying that RFK and his team are not medical experts? And that they're not consulting the best available rigorous evidence? How could this be?

• 21:22Brené Brown?

  I mean, when I was prepping for this, just my innocent journey from Seventeen and Young Miss magazine to this cluster effery, all I could think about is this is what's working right now. Not just in wellness grifting on Instagram, but politically it's

• 21:45Adam Grant?

  Yeah.

• 21:46Brené Brown?

  vulnerable population, you know, fear-based hooking, and appeal to an authority that's really not credible. And the other thing that I think is interesting is this study, it's a small sample. What it talks about is that participants could see ads as problematic and still be hurt by them, that recognizing what's happening and being protected from it are not the same thing.

• 22:21Adam Grant?

  Uh-oh. Well, that's not helpful at all.

• 22:24Brené Brown?

  But, but, but, but think about this for a second. What do you make of that? That recognizing what's happening and being protected by it are not the same thing?

• 22:37Adam Grant?

  Okay, it reminds me of a long history of research in social psychology on the sleeper effect, where people are presented with information and they don't necessarily trust it or believe it. And then you look at what happens over time, and very often, people forget the source and they hang on to the message.

• 22:56Brené Brown?

  Yes.

• 22:58Adam Grant?

  And if we go back to the Heath Brothers principles from earlier, if it's a simple unexpected message, if it's concrete and it's emotional and there's a good story behind it, if you forget the source, you have lost the flashing neon sign that says, hey, this is not credible. And you're just hanging on to the information. Then that information that didn't sway you initially can rebound and now influence you over time.

• 23:23Brené Brown?

  Yes.

• 23:23Adam Grant?

  And there's a group of psychologists that I thought had a great takeaway on this. They said, ultimately, may the source be with you.

• 23:34Brené Brown?

  That's good.

• 23:35Adam Grant?

  As a Star Wars nerd, I love that. But I think it's right. I think that when we put our guard up, we forget, okay, if I'm gonna let any of this information into my head, I need to hang on to the source too. I need to think about, is this a credible source or not? And then when I retrieve that information later, it needs to be linked to the source. I have to remember where I saw it. I have to remember who posted it. I have to ask myself, do I trust this person? And I think that most of our message processing is kind of, okay, the source fades into the background, the information or the recommendation sort of stands out in the foreground. And that's what ends up in our memory. And I wonder if that's a little bit of a way out of this trap is to say, okay,

• 24:19Adam Grant?

  like if we're, if we're building a model of how to resist unwanted influence or being convinced of things that we shouldn't, know your vulnerabilities. That's kind of phase one. Phase two is when you say, okay, this is a fear-based appeal. This is coming from an authority that I don't think is credible. You need to attach, you need to link the appeal to the source.

• 24:44Brené Brown?

  Okay, can I riff on your process a little bit?

• 24:47Adam Grant?

  Please do.

• 24:48Brené Brown?

  Okay, so one, recognize and own your vulnerability. Like, there's no shame in being vulnerable to persuasion. Because, I mean, our next episode's gonna be on your new book, Vibe. And I don't think without mirror neurons, and if someone was completely immune to persuasion, I don't know if we could ever connect and vibe in real ways. So I think the same thing that delivers our susceptibility to persuasion also delivers our capacity for connection and empathy. And is it, do you think that's true?

• 25:26Adam Grant?

  That's so interesting. I never thought about that. But you're right. I mean, one of the core markers of a healthy relationship and a meaningful interaction is we're both open to being persuaded by each other.

• 25:38Brené Brown?

  Right. I just read that in Vibe.

• 25:41Adam Grant?

  I'd never, I'd never put those pieces together. That's an aha moment for me to say, like, we cannot communicate effectively unless we both accept, I am willing to be influenced by you. And you are willing to be influenced by me.

• 25:55Brené Brown?

  Again, next episode's on Vibe. Frickin' love that book. I love when you apply words and linguistics and taxonomies to things that happen that, yeah, I just love it. So we can repeat it and do more of the good stuff and less of the not of the shitty stuff. But so I think the first thing is, yeah, it's just good. It's just good. It's just a good book. You're so terrible taking a compliment, but anyway.

• 26:19Adam Grant?

  I'm just sitting here saying, thank you, thank you. I appreciate that.

• 26:22Brené Brown?

  I know. But so the first thing is, understand that what's the best of us and the hardest of us is our susceptibility to persuasion. It makes us human. So one is to acknowledge that we are influenceable. Okay, number two, this is my riff on what your model is. Number two is get some persuasion literacy. Be able to recognize the appeal to authority. Recognize, does the appeal to authority replace evidence? Where is the evidence? I did this really quick lit review, and there's not a lot of good literature unless you know some, because it's relatively new, about kind of grifting, wellness grifting

• 27:07Brené Brown?

  on social, where 90% of the information shared by influencers is everything this can do for you. None of the caveats, none of the dangers, none of the specific population, you know, no studies. So one, know you're vulnerable and know that's the best of us and the hardest part of us. Two, deconstruct with some advertising literacy. Is that true?

• 27:32Adam Grant?

  Yeah, that's very good. And you're gonna add a third?

• 27:36Brené Brown?

  Well, I want to go to your third. I'm just squeezing my second in on the deconstruction, the advertising literacy.

• 27:42Adam Grant?

  I think the second is really good. And I think Sheldon Y. Spoke influence is a crash course in a lot of the ways that advertisers might be trying to manipulate you. I also thought Maria Konnikova in The Confidence Game, where she studied con artists, mapped that out really well.

• 28:00Brené Brown?

  Ooh, we'll put those books in the notes. And then the third one you said is, may the source be with you. So when you remember something you should be buying, doing, taking, practicing, chase it back down to the source.

• 28:16Adam Grant?

  Yeah, who shared it, who said it? Don't just hang on to the what, link it to the who. And I think this is, this is so interesting. I've never really thought about this before, but hear me out on this and tell me if it's a terrible idea. It drives me crazy when people say, well, they've shown or they've proven. Like, who, who's they? Like, are you saying scientists, researchers? Whenever you hear an ambiguous source, or whenever you see a message from somebody that you're not 100% sure that you trust on that topic, the immediate question should be, who are they? Do they have a track record of communicating reliable information on this issue?

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• 30:48Brené Brown?

  Okay. I want to get into who are they? May the source be with you. And one of the things that I found kind of prepping for today that I thought was interesting is one quick way of, yes or no, do you agree with me or not? Or let's push on this for a little bit. Let's rumble on this for a little bit. Does the source have anything to financially gain from me believing them?

• 31:18Adam Grant?

  Yeah. Alter your motives.

• 31:21Brené Brown?

  Yeah. Do you have any vulnerabilities to these things? I make up that you don't because of your, I make up that you don't.

• 31:29Adam Grant?

  Of course I do. I think everyone does. And I think if I thought I didn't, I would be in danger of the Dunning Kruger effect applied to persuasion where

• 31:37Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 31:38Adam Grant?

  the more overconfident I am about my invulnerability, the more vulnerable I actually am.

• 31:44Brené Brown?

  Right.

• 31:44Adam Grant?

  So, no, I think I have a really strong reflex to say, appeal to fear, not a credible source. Where is the actual evidence? But I think I have domains where I'm very susceptible. And I actually experienced one recently around AI.

• 32:00Brené Brown?

  Oh, my God. Do you want to talk about it?

• 32:02Adam Grant?

  Yeah. I mean,

• 32:03Brené Brown?

  Okay.

• 32:04Adam Grant?

  we saw a wave of comments over the past few weeks that, you know, we're much closer to recursive self-improvement than we thought. And maybe AI could kill us all. And I thought that that claim was preposterous. But then I see posts that saying from sources I consider to be at the very forefront of pioneering work in AI, saying, you know, a swarm of AI agents could take over the internet. I start to think about hacking and I think, okay, like, what are we going to do? Do we need bottled water? Do we need a backup internet source? And

• 32:46Brené Brown?

  Oh, my God, you go prepper.

• 32:48Adam Grant?

  Yeah, I start to prepare because

• 32:49Brené Brown?

  I go prepper too.

• 32:49Adam Grant?

  Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, no, we don't need to be in bunkers, but we do need to be ready. And it would be so stupid, even if this is a low probability event, it's so high severity that I might as well be ready. And I look back at that and I think, okay, to your point, what vested interests do people have in spreading those messages? In convincing you that their technology is so powerful, it could take over the entire internet?

• 33:17Brené Brown?

  Ooh, I have an answer.

• 33:19Adam Grant?

  Ooh, Brené.

• 33:23Brené Brown?

  I'm wondering, I don't know either, like, I am both filling my bathtub with water and critically fighting the messaging at the same time. I'm hedging.

• 33:37Adam Grant?

  That makes sense, though.

• 33:38Brené Brown?

  Yeah, I don't trust any of these people. And I think what's driving the lack of regulation is greed and competition. You know, and probably mainly I would guess with China and other people who have frontier models that are not being slowed down by ethics or testing. And so I think it's greed and competition. But I'm wondering if now they're wanting to slow down because they are hedging on deleveraging in an AI bubble crash. You know? I just don't trust these folks at all. So when they say it's going to help us, I don't trust us. When they say it's going to kill us, I don't trust them. You know, I don't know.

• 34:18Adam Grant?

  Yeah, I think that's, that's a version of the regulatory capture argument. That if we get to shape the regulation, it's going to benefit us and it will protect us. I also think, you know, one, one thing I haven't heard talked about a lot, but that I have felt when I interact with some of the, the AI founders is I think they are vulnerable. You know, they've thought, several of them anyway, not all of them. But if you make a list of the who's who of AI, a number of them have thought in a lot of detail, very vividly about AI doomsday scenarios. And so if we go back to the Heath brothers, they have the emotion, they have the story, they kind of bounce off of each other and they're in an echo chamber of sources they consider credible.

• 35:03Adam Grant?

  And I think that the concreteness of the images they generate, they have started to buy into a narrative that like the danger of China being ahead of America is so great that we need to get there first. Even if the thing we build might be dangerous in ways that China's tools aren't. And I think they've kind of bought hook, line and sinker, the argument that, okay, because China could be faster, the morally responsible thing to do is like, we have to build it so that, you know, we can, we can stop them. Not really considering, okay, is that a fear of mine? That now is influencing my motivation.

• 35:46Brené Brown?

  Yeah, no.

• 35:47Adam Grant?

  Who has sold me that argument about China? And what is their vested interest? Their vested interest is in propping up the American economy and getting like America to be AI dominant. And I'm not saying their fears are right or wrong, but the fact that the people who are now peddling the fear are themselves also responding to it. I think it's a

• 36:08Brené Brown?

  Oh, my God.

• 36:09Adam Grant?

  I mean, it gets complicated very quickly, right?

• 36:12Brené Brown?

  Yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, make sure that you put on my tombstone, I won. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. I just want to go back to the name of the study. Dispelling the illusion of invulnerability, the motivations and mechanisms of resistance to persuasion. You know, and this whole idea that when we have shame about being persuadable, we are so vulnerable to influence. Is that wild?

• 36:46Adam Grant?

  It's, it's a little bit mind boggling and it's paradoxical. Not that, you know, not that we've never seen a paradox before or anything, but this is also how people end up believing in conspiracy theories.

• 36:58Brené Brown?

  Oh, 100%.

• 36:59Adam Grant?

  I'm not talking about plausible conspiracy theories. I am talking about clearly falsified, invalidated conspiracy theories, like the, the earth is flat.

• 37:10Brené Brown?

  Right.

• 37:11Adam Grant?

  And I have seen this. It's, it's clear in the data, but I've also seen it happen with, with some people I know where they are so afraid of, you know, pick your poison, big pharma, or big government, or like whatever source they think might have some self-serving intentions or profit motives. They put up their guard against them. And that fear then makes them vulnerable to another group of people who are selling complete snake oil.

• 37:38Brené Brown?

  That's it.

• 37:39Adam Grant?

  I mean, that's what happened with COVID denial.

• 37:41Brené Brown?

  Oh, yeah.

• 37:42Adam Grant?

  It's what happens with all kinds of science denial, right?

• 37:45Brené Brown?

  Yeah. And I wonder, you know, this is, this is like, this is the wildest conversation. I love it so much. And it's a conversation that's so perfect for the two of us because coming from think like a scientist and then coming from shame and vulnerability and you can't have this conversation without all of those variables.

• 38:03Adam Grant?

  I love how you just put our life's work together.

• 38:07Brené Brown?

  No, it's, yeah, it's cahoots. We're in cahoots here on this one. I think to be able to ask what's persuading me and is the promise that I'm being made supported by evidence? Like, what is the promise? And I also think, to be honest with you, the very first week of COVID hitting the US, I posted something on social that said, this is going to be an involuntary experiment in mass collective vulnerability. And you will see the best of people and the absolute F and worst of people. And I think, I think that was true.

• 38:52Adam Grant?

  Yeah, you're, you're exactly right.

• 38:54Brené Brown?

  And I think that part of the conspiracy theory, and this is interesting because I'm going to vibe now, which is, I want to save for our next episode, but when I was reading vibe, I kept thinking about believing, because it's, it's your connection between the wellness grift and conspiracy theory. That's not a 30 mile walk. That's two steps to the left. That, and, and what drives, I think that we don't ever talk about.

• 39:30Brené Brown?

  What drives the COVID denial and the flat earth and the things that are just kind of mind boggling, if you follow evidence and sources, is also belonging.

• 39:43Adam Grant?

  Yeah.

• 39:44Brené Brown?

  I want to be a part of something that in a mixing bowl, looks like a little bit of toughness, combined with rebellion, combined with fuck the system. And boy, this mixture is how I want to be seen. I don't want to be controlled. I don't want to be sheeple. Although, if you look at the conspiracy theory believers, they define sheeple. I mean, that, that is the definition of sheeple.

• 40:25Adam Grant?

  It's the ultimate irony.

• 40:26Brené Brown?

  Yeah, people following science and getting vaccines, you know, come on, like, I, I don't know. So it's, there's also a, when we're afraid, and when vulnerability doesn't feel like an option, because it means we could die, or not be able to get out of bed, we want to put on armor that looks like bravado, that looks like resistance, that looks like.

• 40:55Adam Grant?

  Yeah.

• 40:56Brené Brown?

  Yeah, that looks like, I will not keep, I, I am a rebel. The earth is flat.

• 41:02Adam Grant?

  Yeah, like, yeah, and, okay, that makes people feel secure. It gives them a sense of strength. It also connects them to a group, and this is, this is your point about belonging. It connects them to a group where now they have special insider knowledge, instead of feeling like they're just either the stupid masses, or they're actually excluded, they're outsiders. Now they're possessing privileged information, it makes them feel important, they know things others don't, and they reinforce each other's knowledge, and then you get a group polarization effect.

• 41:39Brené Brown?

  That's it. And that is absolutely, every time I see something, including this naturopathic doctor who was standing in front of this stuff, saying, toxic products for newborns that I would never let in my house, I think immediately, that's going to become a group of people

• 42:04Brené Brown?

  that, in your vibe words, will feel like pals right away. They are, they are hot wiring, connection, and partnership. They are common enemy intimacy, is what I call it in my work.

• 42:18Adam Grant?

  Oh, that's such a good term for it. Common enemy intimacy.

• 42:22Brené Brown?

  Intimacy. I don't know you. When shit gets hard, there's no way this relationship's going to stand up. We are never going to be, you know, the highest level of vibing, in, you know, in vibe is companion, where we can lean on each other and into each other. We will never be that. But right now, there is a bolus, a hit, an endorphin hit of connection, because we hate the same people, and we believe the same wild shit, and the rest of the world is fucked.

• 42:53Adam Grant?

  And that makes us feel like inseparable allies, too.

• 42:56Brené Brown?

  That's it.

• 42:57Adam Grant?

  Because we've got a common mission to take down this enemy, or to even just to protect ourselves against this enemy.

• 43:03Brené Brown?

  That's it.

• 43:04Adam Grant?

  Wow.

• 43:05Brené Brown?

  Yeah. So when you come across this Instagram, that's on our feeds every day, toxic products for newborns that I'd never let in my house, the seduction is not just, oh, I've got, you know, every one of us who's brought a newborn home, is like, who in the hell trusted me with this thing? You, who, who let this happen? I mean, who in their right mind thinks that, you know, and I was going home with a baby and a pediatrician, and I was still like, we know nothing. This is not allowed. And so, when I say, yeah, I'm not letting that toxic stuff in, I've got an immediate friend group, I'm in the non-toxic mother

• 43:48Brené Brown?

  group, I'm in the non-vax mother group, you know, it's like, it's not just vulnerability and deconstructing messaging and chasing sources, it is a primal need to belong.

• 44:04Adam Grant?

  So it's not just, what am I afraid of that makes me vulnerable? It's also, what am I missing in my life from a group membership standpoint, from community, from connection?

• 44:15Brené Brown?

  Who are my people? Who are my people? Who, where can I find people? And I don't, I don't think, if you choose your people to be a group of people that believe different things, that challenge around different things, that's not easy.

• 44:31Adam Grant?

  No, no, it's not. But it's exactly what we should be trying to build, and it's something we could be setting up much earlier. This should be taught in schools.

• 44:40Brené Brown?

  Oh, God, yes.

• 44:41Adam Grant?

  I mean, I will trade trigonometry for protecting people against vulnerability, like, if I, if I were designing a high school curriculum, I would say, replace trig with Statistics 101, which includes a whole module on how do people lie to you with facts, with data? Or how do they even signal credibility when they don't have data to begin with?

• 45:05Brené Brown?

  Yes, and here's where Adam and I part ways. I would say, take out trig, replace it with an interesting class on, in the sociology department, on belonging, vulnerability, and persuasion, and have a tiny little statistics component.

• 45:22Adam Grant?

  Can we do both?

• 45:24Adam Grant?

  Both?

• 45:24Brené Brown?

  Two parts, year-long, two semesters?

• 45:26Adam Grant?

  Yes. We need to find another class to cancel.

• 45:29Brené Brown?

  Mine's going to be more appealing, dude. Yeah.

• 45:33Brené Brown?

  I'll give you a long list. Um, I actually do use algebra every now and then, so I can't do geometry. No.

• 45:39Adam Grant?

  Yeah, I could let it go.

• 45:41Brené Brown?

  No, geometry's really important, pickleball. Sorry.

• 45:44Adam Grant?

  Calculus. I don't think anybody needs calculus.

• 45:47Brené Brown?

  No, no, bye-bye, bye-bye. Yeah. All right, this was, thank you for, thank you for, like, I just feel like we got on a roller coaster, and you were like, what kind of ride is this? And I said, don't worry, let's go.

• 46:02Adam Grant?

  Buckle up, here we are.

• 46:03Brené Brown?

  Buckle up.

• 46:04Adam Grant?

  And one other book for anybody who wants to dig more into this, Sander van der Linden published a book called Foolproof. And it's a whole book about the psychology of why we fall for misinformation and how to build immunity. And we will put that in the show notes, too.

• 46:20Brené Brown?

  Okay, and before we close, you're not going to like this, but I don't care. I just have to talk about this.

• 46:29Adam Grant?

  Oh, no, I'm gonna love this. Allison published Lump. Love it. And October, Brene, I gotta say, actually, your timing is impeccable, because October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

• 46:40Brené Brown?

  I just want to say to everyone that, y'all know I'm a huge poetry person, and I do not say this easily, because I could say a lot of nice things about the book and not say this. I never thought, as an adult, that I would read a new book that pushed its way into my top 10 books of poetry of all time. And Lump did it. And the subtitle is A Memoir in Ineloquent Reflections. And it is a collection of poetry about, is it fair to say Allison's breast cancer diagnosis, her healing, her, how would you describe it?

• 47:23Adam Grant?

  Yeah, I think that's a great description of it. I, I mean, I loved it so much that I married her.

• 47:30Adam Grant?

  But, yeah, not necessarily in that order, but there's so many things I could say, but I, it meant so much to both of us that you read it, let alone that you were moved by it. And, yeah, I think when, when she was going through diagnosis, treatment, recovery, you know, even now, we're, we're about to celebrate six years all clear, it was really hard to talk about. And she found that writing poetry and prose really helped her process the experience. And she basically tried to write the book that she wanted to read, when she was going through all this. And I'm thrilled for her that it's out in the world. And I'm really hoping that, that anybody who has to either go through a difficult illness

• 48:14Adam Grant?

  themselves, or care for a loved one, or just wants to understand an experience they haven't lived better, will benefit from reading it.

• 48:23Brené Brown?

  Yeah, I mean, when I read it, I just emailed Allison right away and just said, the, the first words that came to me is, this book is what poetry is for. Like, this is, yeah, no, this is, God, I laughed. It is so fricking irreverent. And then I sobbed, and I saw myself in it, and I saw people that I love in it, and it's just Lump, right here, Allison Sweet Grant, like, it's beautiful. So I wanted to say it because it's true.

• 48:56Adam Grant?

  Well, thank you. You are such a giver, Brene.

• 48:59Brené Brown?

  Sometimes. Thanks for getting on the ride with me today. It was, uh, it was, it was fun in real time to make all these connections.

• 49:08Adam Grant?

  For me, too, as always.

• 49:11Brené Brown?

  The Curiosity Shop is produced by Brene Brown Education and Research Group and Granted Productions. You can subscribe to The Curiosity Shop on YouTube or follow in your favorite podcast app.

• 49:21Adam Grant?

  We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more award-winning shows at podcast.voxmedia.com.

• 49:27Speaker 01

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