How to Be A Better Partner

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

• 0:00Shankar Vedantam?

  This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. In the 17th century novel Don Quixote, the hero, an aging knight, sets his sight on a woman named Aldonza Lorenzo.

• 0:15Shankar Vedantam?

  To everyone else, Aldonza is a rough-hewn peasant woman, ordinary in every way. But when Don Quixote looks at her, he sees someone special, a radiant, elegant woman, the embodiment of beauty and virtue.

• 0:33Shankar Vedantam?

  He speaks of her in exalted terms. He imagines her as the inspiration for his quests. He insists on her perfection, even if reality offers little support for his views.

• 0:48Shankar Vedantam?

  He even bestows on her a graceful name that speaks to the sweetness of her character, Dulcinea.

• 0:59Shankar Vedantam?

  We may mark Don Quixote's romantic delusions, but it turns out, he might have the last laugh.

• 1:06Shankar Vedantam?

  Psychological research has begun to explore how our perceptions of other people can shape our relationships with them. That's true when it comes to wildly inflated estimates, like Don Quixote's view of Dulcinea. But it's also true when it comes to views that are harshly critical. They too, shape our relationships with our neighbors, our coworkers, and our partners.

• 1:33Shankar Vedantam?

  This week on Hidden Brain, how our minds shape what we see, how those perceptions create reality, and how to be a better partner.

• 1:56Shankar Vedantam?

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• 2:28Shankar Vedantam?

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• 2:58Shankar Vedantam?

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• 3:33Shankar Vedantam?

  Imagine that the person you love most in the world is standing right in front of you. What do you see? Are you taking in their distinctive qualities, their particular characteristics? Or are you seeing them through the lens of your own thoughts and feelings and anxieties? At the University of Maryland, psychologist Edward LeMay studies how people's fears and feelings skew their perceptions of their partners, and how changing our perceptions can change the nature of our relationships. Ed LeMay, welcome to Hidden Brain.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Thanks so much, Shankar. It's great to be here.

• 4:08Shankar Vedantam?

  Ed, I want to go back some 750 years, when a boy spotted a girl in Florence. The boy would go on to become one of the most celebrated writers and poets of all time. Who were these young people? And can you paint a picture for me of what happened that day?

• 4:24Speaker 01

  Sure. So, the boy was Dante Alighieri, and he met Beatrice Portinari at her father's house. Her father was hosting a May Day party. And at this party, he essentially fell in love with Beatrice, love at first sight. He famously claimed at that moment that his vital spirit began to tremble, and he became a servant to love.

• 4:50Shankar Vedantam?

  Now, I understand that when they first met, they were both children.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's correct. Dante was nine, and Beatrice was just eight.

• 5:05Shankar Vedantam?

  Now, did they stay friends? Did their relationship blossom and grow from there?

• 5:10Speaker 01

  No, they did not. In fact, they didn't have many social interactions. Another notable interaction happened nine years later, when Dante saw Beatrice walking down the street. She offered him a greeting, and Dante was so overwhelmed by that greeting that he returned to his room and reflected on that very minor social interaction, and it inspired his first sonnet.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  But aside from these two encounters, the party and this small interaction on the street, Dante and Beatrice actually had no contact. They may have seen each other in passing, but no formal courtship or even private conversations. Both, in fact, actually married other people.

• 6:00Shankar Vedantam?

  Wow. Now, Dante held on to his image of Beatrice, especially after she died a few years later. Tell me what was happening in his mind, and the image in his mind that he created of her.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, so Beatrice passed away in 1290, and without that contact with Beatrice, his imagination was sort of let loose unconstrained. And so, he essentially constructed in his mind an idealized version of Beatrice. In fact, his imagination of Beatrice eventually became the inspiration for his Divine Comedy, and Beatrice took on the role of Savior Network.

• 6:48Shankar Vedantam?

  I mean, it's kind of striking that a couple of chance encounters in this young man's life could end up playing such a substantial role in his later development as an artist. And of course, you know, someone looking at this from the outside would say, he hardly knew her, he was just making this all up in his head.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's correct. But people do have a way of filling in the blanks and constructing images of people that are not strongly tied to reality.

• 7:26Shankar Vedantam?

  Much more recently, a similar storyline played out in a movie called 500 Days of Summer, which came out in 2009. Tell me the basic plot of the movie, Ed?

• 7:36Speaker 01

  Sure. In that movie, we have two main characters, Tom and Summer. And their relationship is characterized by a profound gap in perception. Tom falls in love with Summer, and he becomes convinced that they have a deep, meaningful partnership. Whereas, Summer insists, from the very start, that she's not looking for anything serious. And throughout their relationship, he continues to interpret their various interactions, the time they spend together, the signs of emotional closeness, the signs of intimacy, as evidence that the relationship is becoming something more than Summer even said she wanted at the beginning.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  And over time, Tom builds this narrative in his mind about how deep their relationship is, and about the future that they're going to have together.

• 8:30Shankar Vedantam?

  There's a striking scene near the end of the movie, when Tom and Summer have parted, but Tom continues to believe that the two of them are meant to be together. Describe what happens at the end of the movie, Ed.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's this one central scene at the end of the movie. There's a voiceover at the start of the scene, and the voiceover says that Tom is walking to her apartment, intoxicated by the promise of the evening.

• 8:58Speaker 02

  He believed that this time, his expectations would align with reality.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  And they did this really creative thing, where they had a split screen. And on one side of the screen, you saw the label "Expectations." And on the other side of the screen, there was the label "Reality."

• 9:18Speaker 01

  And on the "Expectations" side of the screen, we see Tom imagining this warm, intimate reunion with Summer. Summer spots him from across the room, she lights up, she moves over toward him, as if no time has passed between them. And in his mind, they slip easily back into the shared rhythm that they had before. There's lingering eye contact, private jokes, touches, that signal that there's still a connection between them, and still chemistry between them, and that chemistry is obvious to everybody else there at the party. The evening, as he imagines it, isn't just this pleasant encounter, but it's a turning point.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  It's this confirmation that what they had before isn't over, and that the distance between them was just temporary, and that this night will gently set things back into the course that they were on before.

• 10:15Shankar Vedantam?

  And what happens on the "Reality" side of the screen?

• 10:18Speaker 01

  Well, on the "Reality" side of the screen, we see something that's very different. So, here, Summer greets Tom kindly, but briefly, with the same kind of politeness that she extends to all of the other guests at the party. Before moving on to circulate through the party, they have this very brief interaction. And their interactions are short and sort of surface-level throughout the night. They lack the emotional charge that he was imagining. Tom spends much of the evening sort of on the margins, watching rather than participating, and trying to see meaning in her gestures that don't quite hold. The room feels fuller, noisier, less centered on him than he expected.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  And then, quietly but unmistakably, comes the moment where his imagination essentially collapses, is shattered. He notices that engagement ring that Summer is wearing. She's become engaged to somebody else. And in that instant, the ambiguity disappears.

• 11:33Shankar Vedantam?

  I understand that as a young man, you yourself had an experience like Tom's. Can you paint me a picture of how it unfolded, Ed?

• 11:41Speaker 01

  When I was in high school, I had a major crush on a friend of mine, but she was in a relationship with somebody else. And for a long time, I told myself that she probably liked me too, given our closeness, and that if she weren't already with someone, perhaps something might happen between us. So eventually, she and her boyfriend broke up. And I remember thinking, OK, this might be my chance. So not long after, she asked if I wanted to go to the mall. And I picked her up thinking that maybe this might actually be like a date or something.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  But when I got there, I was surprised to see that she invited her sister and another friend along, a guy that I didn't know. And her sister sat in the front seat and she and the guy sat in the back. And as I was driving, the two of them in the back leaned over and started kissing in my backseat.

• 12:39Shankar Vedantam?

  Oh, dear. Oh, dear.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  I remember just sitting there kind of stunned. And that was the moment that it hit me that what I had been seeing all along, that she might be into me, really wasn't coming from her. It was coming from me.

• 13:06Shankar Vedantam?

  So at the psychological term, projection has made its way into popular culture. We understand that it's not just movie projectors that create an image on the screen. Our minds do this too?

• 13:19Speaker 01

  Yes, that's correct. By projection, what we mean is this tendency for people to use themselves as a guide to understanding other people. To be a little bit more concrete, it's a tendency for people to think that other people have the same thoughts, feelings, motivations, characteristics that they have. And it's been documented many, many times that people have this projection bias.

• 13:54Shankar Vedantam?

  We don't see our projections as projections. So what we think we see becomes what we actually see. It becomes our reality. When we come back, I'll look at the lenses that shape how we see our friends and partners and how they burnish or disfigure what is really in front of our eyes. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

• 14:24Shankar Vedantam?

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• 15:09Shankar Vedantam?

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• 15:28Shankar Vedantam?

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• 16:12Shankar Vedantam?

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• 16:25Shankar Vedantam?

  This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. When we look at our friends and romantic partners, we feel as if we're seeing them clearly, taking in who they are, what they want. Other people may be gripped by delusions, we tell ourselves, but we see things clearly.

• 16:44Shankar Vedantam?

  Psychologist Edward LeMay has found that these projections can both help and harm our relationships.

• 16:53Shankar Vedantam?

  Ed, you've studied the scenario described in 500 Days of Summer, where one person has romantic feelings for a friend and assumes the friend feels the same way. Describe the setup of your study and what you found.

• 17:07Speaker 01

  I've conducted a few studies on platonic friendships between men and women. And it's important to note that these are heterosexual men and women. And in one study, we just took a snapshot of what's happening in the relationship. But then, in the other study, we actually followed people over time to look at how these friendships progress. One of the central findings across both studies was that when people had romantic desires for their friend, they projected this desire onto their friend. They believed that their friend reciprocated their romantic feelings. Now importantly, we also had the friend in the study.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  So we could measure whether the friend actually reciprocated. And what we found was that when people had romantic attraction toward their friend, they greatly exaggerated the extent to which their friend reciprocated their romantic attraction. In other words, they projected their romantic attraction.

• 18:14Shankar Vedantam?

  Now, I'm wondering, did this projection have an effect on the relationship between these two people? So if I am overestimating how much someone is attracted to me, does that eventually change how they actually feel toward me?

• 18:27Speaker 01

  Yes, it does. Projection often has consequences because it shapes our behavior. And so in this particular case, the illusion that the friend reciprocated desire seemed to give people courage to pursue their friend. So they engaged in a variety of behaviors that social scientists refer to as relationship initiation behaviors. These include things like directly expressing one's interest in the other person, but more bold things, like moving in for a kiss, looking deep into a person's eyes, engaging in flirting, and then trying to enhance one's appearance,

• 19:10Speaker 01

  doing whatever one can to attract the other person.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  And people who engaged in these behaviors, there was sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy that unfolded. So the friend ended up becoming more interested in them over time. Because we all like to receive attention. We all like to be valued. And so people whose projection gave them the courage to initiate the romantic relationship ended up, in many cases, getting what they actually wanted, which is a friend who did indeed like them back. So initially, it seemed to be a bias and an error in judgment. But that expectation or belief that the friend reciprocated actually ended up becoming true over time.

• 20:08Shankar Vedantam?

  So it might not have been the case with Tom and Summer in the movie, and it might not have been the case with you and your friend in high school. But in general, what you're finding is that these projections have powerful effects, not just on our behavior, but then on the subsequent behavior of the person that we're interested in.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's correct. The projections can end up having an influence on other people's behavior and how other people feel about you. But your point is also a good one, that it doesn't always happen that way. There needs to be, at the outset, a belief that this person who's engaging in the projection is a compatible partner for you. Do you see them as somebody who is desirable, who fits what you're looking for in a romantic partner? And if that's not true, then no matter how much the person projects, the relationship isn't going to develop. So there needs to be a bit of compatibility, you could say, from the start.

• 21:05Shankar Vedantam?

  So that's research into how a romantic relationship might get started. But you found that our projections don't stop there. Once a relationship gets underway, we continue to project our own feelings and motives onto our partners with both positive and negative consequences for our bond. Let's look at those one by one. What are the positive effects of projecting caring and supportive feelings onto a partner, Ed?

• 21:29Speaker 01

  Yes, there's plenty of evidence that this projection process even happens within ongoing relationships with partners that you know very well. And several of my studies have focused on care. And that's because care is central to close relationships. When we're in a close relationship, we very much want the other person to care for our needs. And so whether or not we see the other person as caring should have a lot of implications for how that relationship feels, how satisfying it is, and how it develops over time. And so in some of our early studies, we looked at married couples and their projection of care onto their spouse.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  And what we found was that when one person cared deeply about their partner's welfare and they were motivated to provide support to their partner, they believed that their partner felt the same way toward them in return. And once again, like the friendship study, we actually had the partner participate in the study too. So we had their reports of how motivated they were to provide support to the person doing the perceiving and how much they actually cared for them. And again, what we found was this exaggeration. So those who strongly cared for their spouse exaggerated the extent to which their spouse cared for them. And likewise, it works in the negative direction too, though.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  Those who have low care for their partner also believe that their partners have low care for them.

• 23:15Shankar Vedantam?

  I want to play you a clip from the TV show Mad Men that features Betty, played by January Jones. And in this scene, she tells her husband, Don, played by Jon Hamm, that she knows he's been having an affair.

• 23:28Speaker 03

  Jimmy told me everything.

• 23:30Speaker 04

  Jimmy, he hates me.

• 23:33Speaker 03

  He told me everything.

• 23:34Speaker 04

  Oh, please. What the hell did he say?

• 23:36Speaker 03

  So you can pick it apart, twist all my words?

• 23:38Speaker 04

  I'm not going to dignify Jimmy Barrett with a response. He's a big mouth. And don't pretend I don't know how he looks at you.

• 23:45Shankar Vedantam?

  So I feel like the scriptwriters were being psychologically astute here, Ed. What's happening in this scene?

• 23:52Speaker 01

  This is a great example of projection, this time projecting something that's negative. So in this scene, Don is having an affair. And when he insinuates that something might be going on between Betty and Jimmy, it suggests that he is seeing his own infidelity and his inclinations for infidelity in his partner. He's projecting his own interests in other people onto her.

• 24:20Shankar Vedantam?

  I understand that you once heard of a real-life story along these lines. A student shared an account of a couple who had a similar dynamic to that scene from Mad Men?

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, a student once told me about a couple that she was friends with. The guy was openly flirtatious with other women, even while he was in a relationship. And at the same time, he was often suspicious of his partner. He was accusing her of being interested in other people, even though she insisted that she wasn't.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  What stood out was that the very thing that he was doing, being drawn to other people outside of the relationship, seemed to shape how he saw her.

• 25:05Shankar Vedantam?

  Now, one thing that can make this complicated, Ed, is that it can be difficult to tell when we are seeing reality accurately and when we are projecting our own inner insecurities or our own inner attitudes onto the world. So let's say you have a person who is concerned that, let's say, her husband is cheating on her. Does that automatically mean that she herself has a wandering eye? I mean, isn't it possible that she's seeing reality accurately?

• 25:33Speaker 01

  This is a great point, Shankar, and it's an important qualification to research on bias in relationships generally. And that is that our perceptions are really a mix of both accuracy and bias. We are, to some degree, picking up on our partner's actual thoughts and feelings toward us and motivations. But our perceptions are also shaped by the various lenses that we bring to the relationship, what's going on in our own minds. And that's the case in this research as well. In fact, in all of the research we've talked about up until now, there's evidence for projection,

• 26:17Speaker 01

  but there's also evidence for a bit of accuracy in mind-reading. People are accurate, to some degree, in understanding how much their partners care for them and how much their friends are romantically interested in them and how much their partners are interested in alternative partners and other people. So yes, it's a blend of accuracy and bias.

• 26:43Shankar Vedantam?

  I want to spend a moment on why it is that we do so much projection, Ed. You and others argue that as we try to see someone else, most of the material we're working with comes from our own minds. So I might know a few things about you, but I can think a lot of thoughts about you. And when I weigh everything, my own thoughts end up counting for more than the actual evidence.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  Yes, that's correct. There are plenty of reasons why we don't see stronger accuracy effects. And I can briefly go over a few of those. So one is that many behaviors are ambiguous. We don't know what's driving our partner to behave in a particular way. And that creates room for subjective interpretations. So for example, when our partner gives us unwanted advice when we're venting about a problem we're having at work, we just want to get our feelings out and maybe receive a bit of emotional support. And our partner tells us how we should handle it, which can be a bit off-putting.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  You could interpret that in one of two ways. It could be that my partner is trying to help me solve a problem because they care for me or that my partner is not really listening to what I want and need.

• 28:03Shankar Vedantam?

  Right.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  Or perhaps, as another example, a partner might give you space when you're upset. And you could interpret that in a couple different ways. Maybe it's that my partner is respecting my needs. Or perhaps it's that my partner doesn't care. My partner doesn't want to talk about what's bothering me. So there's room for subjective interpretation in many of the interactions that we have. And then finally, it's important to keep in mind that within any ongoing relationship, there are so many behaviors that are being enacted. And some of them are supportive and some of them are not. And that leaves room for biases in attention and memory. What do you decide to attend to?

• 28:49Speaker 01

  What do you remember, the positive behaviors or the negative? I think that too can explain some of the mismatch we see in people's perceptions of each other within relationships.

• 29:03Shankar Vedantam?

  You make the fascinating point that it's not just our perceptions toward another person that affects the way we see them, but that our behavior toward another person can affect the way we see them. This played out for a friend of yours in a relationship he had in the workplace with a colleague who was known to be a bit of a grump. Can you tell me that story, Ed?

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure. So I have a friend who worked with a senior colleague named Dan. And Dan had a reputation for being grumpy and intimidating, but also brilliant. I think that was part of why he was intimidating to people. And most people in the office kept their distance from him. At one point, my friend had to give a very important presentation and needed to coordinate with him. My friend was so nervous that he ventured to mention his apprehension to Dan himself. And what surprised my friend was how kind and supportive Dan was when he mentioned his anxiety. He went out of his way to help my friend prepare and to manage his nerves.

• 30:09Speaker 01

  And after that, my friend started approaching Dan differently. Instead of avoiding him, he would ask Dan for help and involve him more because he knew that that would sort of bring out this more pleasant side of Dan. And over time, that completely changed how my friend experienced Dan. He no longer saw Dan as intimidating. He saw him as much more supportive and approachable. Other people in the office didn't seem to have that same experience, maybe because they didn't know the sort of secret to unlocking this part of Dan. And so they jokingly started calling my friend the Dan Whisperer.

• 30:52Shankar Vedantam?

  Well, you can see how this can happen so easily in multiple contexts. You know, someone might be a little shy. And so you might say, OK, this person is shy. Let me not bother by inviting them to some office gathering because I know they're shy. They're not going to like it. And so we read these little signals and then we draw a lot from those little signals. And then our behavior then ends up exacerbating the signals that we may have seen in the first place.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's correct. Our behavior can exacerbate those signals by changing how the other person actually responds to us. But in addition, our behavior can alter our own expectations regarding what this interaction is going to be like. It can sort of bring out another side of somebody and cause us to think that the relationship is going to be different now that I behave in this particular way.

• 31:44Shankar Vedantam?

  So bringing this insight back to our romantic relationships, how does our behavior toward our partners shape the way we end up seeing them?

• 31:54Speaker 01

  So in ongoing relationships, we don't just look at our partner to figure out how our partner feels about us, but we also look at ourselves. Our own behavior, such as whether we're warm and supportive toward our partner or conversely, whether we're cold and distant toward our partner, can shape how we think our partners see us, whether they see us as a warm partner or a cold partner. And most of us have expectations that warmth elicits positive feelings in other people, positive attitudes in other people, and that coldness elicits negative feelings and attitudes in other people. So just by being warm, we sort of provide ourselves with a reason to be confident that

• 32:37Speaker 01

  other people value us and like us and want to be with us. So when we are warm, it helps us feel more secure that we're loved. And when we're cold, it can give us a reason to instead have doubts about how much others like us or want to be around us. In the studies I've done on this topic, we find that in daily life, people feel more confident that they're valued by their partners on days when they're especially warm toward their partners. And they feel less confident, more insecure about how much their partners value them on days when they're cold. We've also done experiments where we've manipulated a person's behavior toward their partner.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  So we're encouraging them to behave in a supportive or unsupportive way. And we find that this experimental manipulation alters the person's expectations and feelings of being valued by their partner. So behavior is an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to understanding how a person comes to feel loved or unloved.

• 33:55Shankar Vedantam?

  Ed, I understand that people in relationships commonly see their partners through the lens of how much they want the relationship to work. Can you explain this dynamic, how it works?

• 34:06Speaker 01

  This is an example of what we like to think of as wishful thinking or to be a little bit more technical motivated cognition. This idea that the way we think is biased by what we want. And we see the world in a way that sort of subjectively confirms what we most want the world to be like. And that also is the case within relationships. As one concrete example of this, when we strongly want the relationship, if the partner behaves in a way that suggests lack of care, what we do, we sort of invent excuses that

• 34:49Speaker 01

  allow us to still feel cared for despite the uncaring behavior that's right in front of us. So one kind of excuse that I've found in my work is that people will convince themselves that they didn't clearly enough communicate their needs to their partner. And that explains why their partner is behaving in this unsupportive way. It's not that the partner doesn't care for me, but rather it's the partner just didn't know what I wanted or needed in this particular situation.

• 35:18Shankar Vedantam?

  So a dramatic example of this kind of motivated cognition comes from the television show Breaking Bad. In the show, Walter White, who is played by Bryan Cranston, is a high school chemistry teacher who is turned to making and selling drugs in an effort to pay for his cancer treatment. In this scene, his wife Skylar, played by Anna Gunn, tries to convince him, once she has found out what's going on, that they should go to the police.

• 35:44Speaker 05

  You're not some hardened criminal, Walt. You are in over your head. That's what we tell them. That's the truth. That is not the truth. Of course it is. Schoolteacher, cancer, desperate for money. OK, we're done. Roped into working, unable to even quit. You told me that yourself, Walt.

• 36:03Shankar Vedantam?

  Ed, what's your sense of what Skylar is thinking and saying in this scene?

• 36:08Speaker 01

  Well, I think that what's striking in this scene is that Skylar is trying to tell a story about who Walter is that allows her to make sense of the situation and to stay in the relationship. She frames him as someone who's in over his head, who's basically a good person who got pulled into something bad. And that's a very sympathetic version of him. But at that point in the story, that's really not who Walt is anymore. And I think what you're seeing here is Skylar's motivated perception. She's not just describing him. She's interpreting him in a way that protects something that she deeply cares about, which is her marriage and her family.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  So she's, in a sense, holding on to an earlier version of him or a more hopeful version of him because that's the version that makes it possible for her to stay connected with him.

• 37:11Shankar Vedantam?

  I want to play you a clip from the 1997 movie Good Will Hunting. In this scene, Skylar, played by Minnie Driver, is in a new relationship with Will, who is played by Matt Damon. And Skylar is moving to California and has just asked Will to come with her. Will asks how she knows that she really wants his company.

• 37:31Speaker 03

  I know because I feel it.

• 37:36Speaker 06

  Because that's a really serious thing to say.

• 37:38Speaker 03

  I mean.

• 37:39Speaker 06

  You could be in California next week and, you know, you might find out something about me you don't like. And, you know, maybe you wish you hadn't said that, but you know, it's such a serious thing that you can't take it back. And now I'm stuck in California. Someone doesn't really want to be with me. Just wish they had a take back.

• 37:55Speaker 03

  A what? What's a take back? I don't want a take back. I just want you to come to California with me.

• 38:03Shankar Vedantam?

  So Ed, what do you hear Will expressing there? How does it relate to your research on the influence of one partner's insecurity within a relationship?

• 38:13Speaker 01

  What I hear in that clip is someone who's deeply unsure about his value as a relationship partner and in particular unsure about whether Skylar sees anything worthwhile in having him as a relationship partner. And because of that, he's not just reacting to what Skylar is doing. He's interpreting the relationship through the lens of his insecurities.

• 38:42Shankar Vedantam?

  And he's not just saying, you know, look, I'm really insecure and I'm worried that this is going to fall apart. He's basically saying, what happens when we get to California and you decide you don't want to be with me? So in other words, he is seeing in her behavior, her future behavior, his present insecurities.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  Yes, that's correct. He is using his insecurities regarding how much she values him to forecast where this relationship will go. And he has a very pessimistic outlook on the future of their relationship. He's expecting rejection, essentially.

• 39:20Shankar Vedantam?

  I mean, it's amazing how many of these projections end up being effectively self-fulfilling prophecies.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  That's correct. Yeah, because having these perceptions of being devalued by the partner and questioning the authenticity of the partner's expressions of love can lead the insecure person into behaving in negative ways that can actually push the partner away.

• 39:48Shankar Vedantam?

  When we ask ourselves what our partners are thinking and feeling, it can feel like we're simply reading reality. But as Ed's research shows, we're often reading our own fears, hopes, and expectations. These projections can quietly shape the course of a relationship for better and for worse.

• 40:08Shankar Vedantam?

  When we come back, how to work skillfully with the projections we cast onto those we love. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

• 40:26Speaker 07

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• 40:56Shankar Vedantam?

  Support for Hidden Brain comes from Air France. Air France Business Cabin offers comfort throughout the journey with priority check-in, boarding, and lounge access. Onboard, enjoy menus from renowned French chefs, wines and champagne selected by a sommelier, and free high-speed Wi-Fi. When it's time to rest, settle into a fully adjustable lie-flat bed with added mattress comfort. The art of travel, elevated, because Air France Business Cabin goes further in every detail to make your journey exceptional. This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. As you've listened to the story, have you thought of ways in which your own projections shape your behavior and feelings toward your partner?

• 41:41Shankar Vedantam?

  Can you think of times when other people's projections have shaped the way they behave toward you? If you have a personal story you would be willing to share with the Hidden Brain audience, or a question or comment about this episode, please find a very quiet room and record a voice memo on your phone. Two or three minutes is plenty. Email the file to us at [email protected] using the subject line "projections." Again, that's [email protected]. Psychologist Ed LeMay's research suggests that we persistently view our partners through lenses colored by our own fears, desires, and insecurities.

• 42:22Shankar Vedantam?

  These filters cause us to misread our partners in ways that can create confusion, conflict, and distance. Ed suggests that by becoming aware of these projections and working with them in intentional, skillful ways, we can improve our relationships with the people we love. Ed, I'm wondering whether we want to see our partners as clearly as possible, or we want to see them as skillfully as possible. What do you think?

• 42:49Speaker 01

  Well, I think that the key is that we don't want to see our partners unrealistically. We want to see them generously while still staying grounded in reality. And I think that one way people do this is by giving their partner the benefit of the doubt when things are ambiguous, assuming good intentions rather than the worst. But at the same time, it's important to stay open to new information. So if there is a consistent pattern of troubling behavior, you don't want to explain that away. In fact, that's why people, some people, end up staying in relationships that are really not good for them.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  So it's really about a balance, holding on to a generally positive view of the partner while still updating that view when the evidence calls for updating. And when people get that balance right, it tends to promote trust, stability, and satisfaction in the relationship, and, as we've discussed before, can even have positive effects on how the partner feels about us and how they treat us.

• 43:57Shankar Vedantam?

  So let's unpack this a little bit. Let's start with the idea of positive illusions. This idea has been around for a very long time. Talk for a moment about how positive illusions about our partner can be a good thing for our relationships.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  Positive illusions can be a good thing for our relationships because it helps us have the sense that the person that we've committed to is the right person for us. It can help alleviate doubts that many of us would otherwise have regarding whether we've made the right choice or not. And so that can promote a sense of satisfaction with the relationship. And then that sense of satisfaction can in turn affect how we behave toward the partner, can make us feel committed to that partner, and engage in a variety of behaviors that

• 44:56Speaker 01

  help create the positive relationship that we want. In addition, like the self-fulfilling prophecy we talked about before, it can have an effect on the partner. So the partners may have more positive experiences with us when we entertain these positive illusions. And the partner's feeling of satisfaction in turn can result in them behaving in the positive way that we perceived initially.

• 45:25Shankar Vedantam?

  I mean, in some ways, this is the idea that if you give someone a good reputation, they have some incentive to live up to that good reputation.

• 45:38Speaker 01

  Yes, that's correct. They might feel that they should live up to the positive views that you have of them, but they also might feel more valued by us. And we know that when people feel valued by others, it provides a strong incentive to reciprocate with positive behaviors and intentions in return.

• 46:09Shankar Vedantam?

  It's very striking that I think many of us, of course, imagine that our thoughts and our feelings come first, and then our behaviors come from our thoughts and feelings. And that certainly is true to some extent. But I think what you're also saying is that if you start with the behaviors, if you start by acting loving, you in fact start to feel loving.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Yes, that's correct. When we act loving, we sort of create behavioral evidence for why we should be valued in our relationship and why we have a good relationship. And that can override some of these negative expectations that we bring to the relationship.

• 46:53Shankar Vedantam?

  A reminder, ask yourself if you have projected your feelings and attitudes onto someone else, or if someone has projected their own views onto you. If you have a personal story you'd be willing to share with the Hidden Brain audience, or a question or comment about this episode, please find a very quiet room and record a voice memo on your phone. Two or three minutes is plenty. Email the file to us at [email protected]. Use the subject line "projections." Again, that's [email protected]. Ed, you've noted that the first step to working skillfully with our projections is to be able to see that we are employing them. You recently had an interaction with your wife in which you were able to catch yourself

• 47:37Shankar Vedantam?

  in the act of attributing emotions to her that were really coming from you. Tell me what happened and how that interaction unfolded.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  Sure. There was a moment recently where I felt like my wife was being a little short with me. It was something about her tone, sort of subtle, and I could feel myself starting to get irritated, and I was on the verge of snapping back. But then I paused and I realized that I've been stressed and on edge all day, and it occurred to me that I might be just reading that into her, seeing her as more agitated than she actually was. So instead of reacting, I just took a step back and considered that I might be bringing a particular lens to this interaction, and helped me reframe the situation as one where

• 48:29Speaker 01

  she didn't actually seem as upset as I had initially assumed. And moments like that have made me more aware of how easily our internal state can shape what we think we're seeing in other people. So now, when I feel that kind of strong reaction, I try to treat it as a signal to pause and ask, is this really about them, or is this about something that I'm bringing to this interaction? One of the things that we find is that in many situations, our partner's behavior is actually a bit ambiguous. There's more than one way to interpret it. And in those moments, we have a choice about the lens that we use.

• 49:14Speaker 01

  We can lean toward a more negative interpretation, or we could have a more generous one. And choosing the more benevolent interpretation, giving your partner the benefit of the doubt, can be really helpful for relationships. It reduces unnecessary conflict, and it helps maintain a sense of trust and connection. That said, it's not about ignoring reality. If there's a clear pattern of hurtful behavior, that's something that you want to take seriously. But it's those gray areas, and there are many of them, where leaning toward generosity

• 49:49Speaker 01

  is often a healthier and more constructive way to see your partner.

• 50:00Shankar Vedantam?

  Edward LeMay is a psychologist at the University of Maryland. Ed, thank you so much for joining me today on Hidden Brain.

• 50:07Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me. This was really great.

• 50:15Shankar Vedantam?

  What Ed is suggesting can be difficult to practice. Leaning into generosity when your partner is getting under your skin isn't easy. But developing this skill can create a virtuous cycle of connection. It can open the space for our partners to show how much they value us. And being appreciated by the people in our lives is vitally important. Recently, we heard from listener Inkem. She told us that in the days after a surgical procedure, she felt ignored by her family.

• 50:46Speaker 06

  For context, I live away from home. And I hate to say this, but even if I did live at home, I don't think the outcome would have been much different. But my immediate family did not call to check on me. They knew I had it. Everybody's kind of wrapped up in what they're doing. I do live out of state, and nobody called to check on me.

• 51:12Shankar Vedantam?

  Inkem knows her family cares about her, but she wants that concern expressed through actions.

• 51:18Speaker 06

  Not having anyone to check in with when I arrive somewhere new, like if I'm traveling, just how hands-off my family is when it comes to my well-being.

• 51:34Speaker 03

  Is just so incredibly hurtful. And I think that one thing I started to do is being the type of person that I would want, or the type of friend I would want. So doing those things for other people has kind of helped ease that pain.

• 51:54Shankar Vedantam?

  When we treat another person with warmth and love, we hope to see these emotions reflected back to us. What happens when they're not? When we come back, listener stories about the psychological importance of feeling loved. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Support for Hidden Brain comes from Stripe. Stripe is built for whatever comes next. Because as your business scales, so does the complexity of fraud. New customers, new markets, new AI-driven attack patterns.

• 52:35Shankar Vedantam?

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• 53:16Shankar Vedantam?

  Learn more about fighting fraud with Stripe at stripe.com/radar. Support for Hidden Brain comes from US Bank. With a US Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card, you earn an unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase. No quarterly activations, no categories to track, just unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase. Visit usbank.com/smartlycard to learn more. The creditor and issuer of this card is US Bank National Association. Pursue into a license from Visa USA, Inc. Some restrictions may apply. This is Hidden Brain.

• 54:00Shankar Vedantam?

  I'm Shankar Vedantam. All of us want to believe that our families and romantic partners love us. But knowing in an intellectual way that someone loves us, and feeling that love, those are very different things. At the University of California, Riverside, Sonia Lubomirsky studies the human desire to feel loved. With Harry Reese, she's the author of How to Feel Loved: The Five Mindsets That Get You More of What Matters Most. Sonia was a guest on a recent episode of Hidden Brain titled, Do You Feel Loved? Today, she returns to the show for our popular segment, Your Questions Answered. Sonia Lubomirsky, thank you so much for joining me today on Hidden Brain.

• 54:43Speaker 05

  I'm delighted to be back.

• 54:45Shankar Vedantam?

  Sonia, we all want to be loved. You say that it is vitally important not just to be loved, but to feel loved. Explain this distinction to me.

• 54:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think a lot of us are loved, but we don't feel loved. My co-author, Harry Reese, and I actually conducted a survey expressly for our book, and we found that 70% said that there's at least one relationship in their life that they don't feel as loved as they'd like to feel. And I like to think of it as kind of like, you know, we all know people who are beautiful, but they don't feel beautiful, or who are smart, but they don't think they're smart. So similarly, we can be loved, but not feel loved.

• 55:22Shankar Vedantam?

  Hmm. What are the implications of this? What is the consequence of being loved, but not feeling loved?

• 55:28Speaker 05

  Hmm. Well, I've been doing research on happiness for more than 36 years. And after all those years, I came to the conclusion that really the key to happiness is feeling connected and feeling loved. And so if you don't feel loved, I would argue you can't be truly happy.

• 55:46Shankar Vedantam?

  So when we feel unloved, the consequences can sometimes be dire. Listener Tori brings us one such example. She's an infectious disease epidemiologist, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, many of her family members, including her mother and her husband, didn't trust her expertise on the virus and the vaccines created to protect people from it.

• 56:08Speaker 06

  That was a huge personal affront in some regards, as a professional. But their lack of trust in me, it felt like it could only be true that they thought I was stupid. Because I spent years becoming this professional, and they believed everything else I'd ever told them, except when it came to COVID. And they told me outright that they did not think I was stupid, that they loved me. But I couldn't believe that. And it led to the end of my marriage. And I was able to thankfully repair my relationship with my mother, but that took a lot of work. And there will always be some scars there, I think, because it is one of the most painful

• 56:48Speaker 06

  experiences in the world when people who you believe love you, show you that they don't.

• 56:55Shankar Vedantam?

  So Sonia, some people might hear the story and think Tori's family told her they loved her. Just because they disagreed with her about COVID doesn't mean they didn't love her. But what I take away from Tori's story is that for her, this was not just an intellectual affront, but an emotional affront. And I'm not sure it's anyone else's place to tell Tori what she needs to feel loved. Talk for a moment, if you will, about how we might all have idiosyncratic ways of feeling loved.

• 57:22Speaker 05

  Hmm. You know, Tori's question is almost heartbreaking, right? And it shows that just because someone tells you they love you, or tells you, oh, I don't think you're stupid, it doesn't necessarily come through. It's like, we all have a cup of love, and people can pour love in that cup, but it might not be getting in, or might be leaking out for various reasons. And I guess the bottom line I'm taking from Tori's story is that somehow she wasn't feeling seen, she wasn't really, they weren't really understanding, she wasn't feeling understood, understanding what she's all about. And we argue in our book that the key to feeling loved is really to be known, right? To be heard and seen and understood. And she was not feeling seen and understood.

• 58:06Shankar Vedantam?

  Hmm. I mean, for her, being a scientist was clearly a large part of her identity. And for her, it sounds like being unloved was a consequence of people not recognizing that identity.

• 58:17Speaker 05

  Exactly. That's like when people don't really see what's inside of you that really matters to you. So feeling known is when you sort of, when you look at yourself, and what do you see that really matters to you? Like, who do you really see yourself to be? And for her, being an epidemiologist was that important part of her identity. And so they weren't really seeing that important part of her, and seeing how much it matters to her. And so, yeah, it's hard to feel loved when people aren't really seeing you.

• 58:44Shankar Vedantam?

  So sometimes there are big disagreements that can leave us feeling unloved, but other times, we can feel undervalued in small moments. Here's listener Leila with one such story.

• 58:55Speaker 05

  My partner right now, we were riding the bus together the other day. It was hot. We were in a packed bus, we were standing body to body, and a seat opened up. And immediately, my partner took the seat. They didn't offer it to me, they didn't consider that I also might be hot and wanting to sit down. And if they had offered it to me, I probably would have said no. But, I don't know, I think I felt unloved in that moment, because I wasn't considered.

• 59:34Shankar Vedantam?

  Sonia, can you talk about how small acts can sometimes represent so much to us?

• 59:40Speaker 05

  Yes. In fact, when Harry Reese and I asked people what it is that makes people feel loved, a lot of the examples were small things. They were like, that person, they handed me a cup of tea before I even knew that I wanted that cup of tea, right? They sort of, as Leila mentioned, sort of being considered. And, you know, one thing we talk about in our book is called the open heart mindset, which is this idea that we show warmth and compassion and kindness towards the other person. We believe in them, we want them to be happy, right? So in this moment on the bus, where her partner was not showing the open heart mindset towards her, you know, sort of that small moments of warmth, compassion, like, I want you to be happy, you know, putting them as a priority beyond themselves.

• 1:00:25Shankar Vedantam?

  Hmm. And of course, the striking thing here is that it's not the seat on the bus itself, that's the point. You know, it's entirely possible that Leila might have said, no, no, thank you, please keep sitting. If the seat had been offered to her, it was the fact that it was not offered that was the source of pain.

• 1:00:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. This sort of being considered, lack of being considered, or, yeah, it's the signal of that warmth and kindness, and like, I want you to be happy, that we need, it doesn't even have to play out, it's just the signal is there and it's being expressed.

• 1:00:56Shankar Vedantam?

  Sonia, let's talk about where the feeling of being unloved can come from. Several listeners said they felt unloved when they were children. Here's Mario.

• 1:01:05Speaker 06

  I was in elementary school, and I walked home from school. And no one ever thought to give me a key to get into the house. I was the first one home, because everyone was working. So I found different ways to break into the house. Also, like, I never had a parent figure ask me, how was your day? How was your homework? You know, do you need help with anything, any of that stuff? I remember just, you know, having to reread and read and read and read the book, go back pages to try to figure it out. So in some ways, maybe that has helped me in my life, because I can figure things out pretty easily. But, you know, then I didn't have anybody. I also hated parent-teacher conferences, because I knew the next day, the teacher'd

• 1:01:49Speaker 06

  be like, where were your parents? And I would just make up an excuse, because I just knew no one would go. And I still feel, have a lot of that in my adult life.

• 1:02:01Shankar Vedantam?

  So Sonia, I feel for Mario. Is there a link between feeling unloved in childhood and feeling unloved later in life?

• 1:02:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, wow, this is really moving to me. Well, absolutely. You know, I'm not a developmental psychologist, but certainly, attachment styles are rooted in childhood, right? So people who are insecurely attached, whether they're avoidant or anxious, often are rooted in childhood, these kinds of childhood experiences. That could be one reason. There's just so many reasons why we are not, you know, internalizing or sort of Taking that love in. So again, when we have sort of that cup of love and people are pouring love into the cup, but for some reason, we don't trust it. Some of that could be with our childhood patterns and habits and what we've learned. Some of it is just that we never learned to really love ourselves when we were children. And now we don't really love ourselves. And when we don't love ourselves,

• 1:02:52Speaker 05

  other people can pick up on that. We don't really trust other people's love is genuine if we don't think we're really truly lovable. And so again, this is not really my area of expertise, but I certainly have some ideas for that, for how that love has trouble getting in.

• 1:03:08Shankar Vedantam?

  But in some ways, what you're doing is you're laying out effectively a two-pronged problem here, Sonia, which is one problem might be that we're not being loved or not being loved in the way we want to be loved. But you're also saying the second problem is, you know, we might have, in some ways, a faulty meter. You know, we're not actually registering things in the way that it's coming to us because of our own filters and our own biases.

• 1:03:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely. As I mentioned, I think it's really, there could be many reasons or several reasons. You're mentioning two main ones. Why that love is somehow not getting in, right? The faulty meter. Maybe we really aren't loved, you know? Or maybe we somehow aren't aware of it. We're not trusting it. We're not looking for it in the right places, you know? We actually, Harry Rees and I kind of debunked the idea of the love languages in our book. And yet, the love language is actually a good heuristic. And sort of, I have this example where I was dating someone who would send me gifts in the mail, like little cute gifts with little handwritten notes, which is adorable. But yet, I wasn't feeling love because what I really needed from him were words of affirmation, were sort of saying something or spending time with me in a certain way, quality time. But his love language was gifts, you know?

• 1:04:15Speaker 05

  And so that could be with other people, too, that we're not sort of interpreting other people's expressions of love as love because we're looking for something else.

• 1:04:25Shankar Vedantam?

  And I'm wondering if some of this is also because, you know, Sonia, we're all walking around on a planet with, you know, seven or eight billion other people. And at some level, you know, it feels like we are part of this big, undifferentiated mass. And it helps to have someone say, you know, no, you're not one of many. You're one of one.

• 1:04:43Speaker 05

  Exactly. And I see you and I hear you. Which is why when people show curiosity in us, you know, in our passions and in the details of our lives and like the boring little things that we might be interested in, but no one else is, it's a gift, right? When people really see the, our interests and our values and our passions.

• 1:05:05Shankar Vedantam?

  When we come back, what do you do when you love someone, but they don't love you back? You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

• 1:05:26Shankar Vedantam?

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• 1:06:33Shankar Vedantam?

  This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. You can feel alone in a crowded room. Or you can feel unloved in a decades-long marriage. That's often when loneliness strikes the hardest. When you have people around you, but your relationships don't feel satisfying.

• 1:06:52Shankar Vedantam?

  In a survey of nearly 2,000 Americans, two in three people said they yearn to feel more loved by the people in their lives.

• 1:07:01Shankar Vedantam?

  The psychologist Sonia Lubomirsky was one of the authors of that survey. She argues that the problem isn't the number of friends we have or how empty our social calendars are. It's that too often, our interactions don't leave us feeling genuinely loved.

• 1:07:17Shankar Vedantam?

  You told me earlier, Sonia, that you're skeptical about the idea of love languages. The idea that we all have these special ways that we want to be communicated to and with. And that, you said, that's not quite supported by the scientific evidence. Say more about this. What's the problem with the theory of love languages?

• 1:07:35Speaker 05

  Sure, sure. Well, I should start by saying I love the idea of love languages. I talk about them all the time. What's not supported, first of all, the idea that there's just five. There's lots of love languages. It also turns out there's really two love languages that we all want. And those are words of affirmation and quality time. And so we kind of all want those love languages. Another finding is that really, the more love languages someone shows love to you, the better. And so the really, the part that's really not supported by the evidence is that there's, is sort of this matching hypothesis. The idea that if you find someone who matches your love language, right? Like my love language is physical touch and that's what they express their love to me in the most. Then that's going to lead to a stronger and more long-lasting relationship.

• 1:08:20Speaker 05

  That's the part that's really not supported. So the matching is not really that important. It's just sort of, the more love languages you express your love in, the better.

• 1:08:28Shankar Vedantam?

  So my experience of your love might be very different than the love that you actually feel for me. We heard a story from listener Kathleen that speaks to this idea.

• 1:08:37Speaker 05

  I am an action-oriented person in that I will show the person that I love, that I care for them by doing little things for them, making them meals, leaving them notes, et cetera. I went through a divorce 13 years ago. And one of the things I uncovered during my healing journey was that I never really felt loved in my marriage. I was told, I love you, I love you. But the actions never matched.

• 1:09:07Speaker 05

  Fast forward to Mother's Day of 2026 and the text message that comes in because my child lives out of state. You're the most wonderful mother. I wouldn't be half the person I am without you. But yet, I learned that they celebrated Mother's Day with their father and their father's family. This is how I have not felt loved, is when people tell me they love me, but their actions show me otherwise.

• 1:09:38Shankar Vedantam?

  So Sonia, what do you hear in Kathleen's story?

• 1:09:41Speaker 05

  That it's really the love languages example, that for her, it's really actions that speak louder than words. For other people, it's words. Like for me, it's the words that speak louder. When I heard that what the child said, you're the greatest mother ever. I would never choose another mother. Like, I felt so heartwarming by that. I thought, wow, that is, that is what I'd want to hear from my child. And actually, I had this very similar message from my daughter who wrote something like, I would never, even when we fight, I would never ask for another mother, huh? Anyway, to me, that's, literally, I'm actually reading it. It's actually right in front of me. I hope you know that, whatever we fight about, I would never ask for another mother. This is my 15-year-old. But anyway, so that's what really warms my heart and makes me feel loved.

• 1:10:24Speaker 05

  But for Kathleen, it's actions, right? Actions speak louder to her than words. And so part of me makes me sad because, because those family members might really love her very much, but they're just sort of not showing it the way that she, that she really needs to receive. And maybe the key is, maybe the solution is to communicate that, you know? To say that this is, this is what I really need to feel loved. This idea that when people love us, they should just like, they should just know. They should just be able to guess what we need. And yet, that's just not the case. You know, we really can't read people's minds. And, and so we need to communicate those needs to each other.

• 1:11:00Shankar Vedantam?

  Yeah. So we've discussed feeling love from others, but a few listeners called in with comments about loving themselves. Taylor says that in her teens, she actually hated herself. But after years of working on those harsh feelings, she's come to be in a better place. Here she is.

• 1:11:17Speaker 05

  You know, I've come to a place where I don't feel so much like I dislike myself. I either like myself or I feel neutral, and that's great. But now my new problem is, now that I like myself and accept myself, I feel less liked and less loved by those around me, by, just like you said, by my community. And this is just such a horrible paradox that now that I've gotten over the idea of hating myself. And actually, I felt like I was more loved by other people when I hated myself. And now the roles have completely reversed. And now I'm in therapy to feel more loved by the people in my life individually and collectively.

• 1:12:03Speaker 05

  So I'm laughing about it now, but on an everyday basis, it is very challenging and a very sticky issue. And, you know, I'm hearing all the advice about it. And I feel like I'm trying it and it's not working. Anyway, thank you so much.

• 1:12:19Shankar Vedantam?

  So Sonia, the classic saying goes that you need to love yourself before anyone else can love you. What do you make of Taylor's comments?

• 1:12:27Speaker 05

  There's this classic idea that you need to love yourself before you can feel loved or love others. I actually don't agree with that. I believe, yeah, I believe the causality is really bidirectional, right? Like you, yes, it's easier to feel love from others and it's More likely when you love yourself, but also you learn to love yourself in the context of love relationships. So I do want to say that. Taylor's problem is so interesting. It made me think that maybe now that she loves herself more, she's more aware of the lack of love that she sees. It's as though she realizes that she deserves more love. When we don't love ourselves, we're kind of, we don't feel like we deserve it as much. So like, you know, two units of love is sort of enough for us. There's this very old theory in social psychology called self verification theory,

• 1:13:12Speaker 05

  where we, we search for evidence to verify our views of ourselves, including negative views, right? So if we don't feel like we're so lovable, then we don't feel like, you know, we deserve that love. And now that she knows she does deserve it, now she realizes a lot of, the two units aren't enough, you know, then it's not enough.

• 1:13:30Shankar Vedantam?

  What, what strikes me is that she said that previously, when she quote unquote, hated herself, she experienced more love from others. And, and I'm wondering if it's almost like a contrast effect, you know, that, that people were, were showing her more love because they saw that she was being so cruel to herself. But now that she's being kinder to herself, people are saying, you know, she's, she's good. She's providing herself with the security she needs.

• 1:13:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, I, I had the same thought too, Shankar. Yes, as though she doesn't need it. I'm also reminded of like, people who are sort of fairly like, you know, have good social networks and lots of friends or fairly successful, they don't actually get a lot of support or compliments. It's as though people like feel like they don't need it, you know, they don't need it. And of course, we all need it. We all need that kind of validation and the compliments and the support.

• 1:14:19Shankar Vedantam?

  We've talked previously on the show about how one way of attracting love is to be loving. This idea in some ways calls to mind the norm of reciprocity, that we feel an obligation to return attention and acts of kindness. Many listeners called in about that. Here's one message we received from listener AJ. My question is, how do you deal with the feeling of pouring love into other people and not getting it in return? I hear from my students and my friends and members of my community, how meaningful my support is and I'm always there for them and I remember to ask them questions and follow up and give them insight.

• 1:15:01Shankar Vedantam?

  And I am thankful to be able to be that person, but simultaneously, I don't feel I received that back. So Sonia, when we feel like we're loving someone else, but not feeling any love in return, what do you suggest we do?

• 1:15:15Speaker 05

  This happens sometimes, you feel like you're doing all the right things. Like in, in, in our book, we talk about, you know, the importance of sharing and listening and showing curiosity and being attuned to people with warmth and acceptance. And sometimes people, you're doing all those right things, you're showing kindness, you're listening, and the other person is not reciprocating. You know how therapists don't, don't ever tell you kind of directly what they think, right? They want you to come up with the answer. I'm not a therapist, so I'll be blunt. When people say that to me, I'll say, you know, maybe you, you made the wrong decision. You know, maybe you need to step away from that person. Maybe you need to pause that relationship or, or just accept it, right? If it's a family member, you can't really walk away.

• 1:15:57Speaker 05

  So yeah, if you're trying everything, you're doing all the right things and they're still not reciprocating, you know, again, my blunt response is like, maybe it's not going to happen. But most of the time, people do reciprocate, but, but sometimes, sometimes it happens, it's sad, but we, we might need to just take a pause.

• 1:16:15Shankar Vedantam?

  One aspect of relationships is that they change over time. So with our romantic partners, we start out in a honeymoon period, as they say, and you know, we're head over heels in love. And then with time, that love often matures and evolves. Now, we often expect our partners to remain the same person we fell in love with, but of course, they are growing and changing, just like we are. Listener Krista has been with her partner for nine years. At the start of the relationship, they mutually agreed they would not use drugs and alcohol. Here's Krista.

• 1:16:47Speaker 05

  We've had a really great life together. Last month, she announced that she wanted to start taking substances again, both medicinally and recreationally. But it was really an announcement that she was going to make this change and very little acknowledgement that this would be a very difficult, challenging juncture for us. So not only am I not feeling loved by her not acknowledging any of that, but I'm also feeling rejected and, and scared about what's ahead. So my question is, when can one feel loved through conversation? And when is it hard to close that gap in a conversation?

• 1:17:32Speaker 05

  Because really, it's a shift in values. And how might that play into it? Oh, so interesting, so interesting. Cause, cause it's true, you know, people do change over time, even though we often don't want our partners to change. But I, I'm a big believer in communication and conversation, sort of that, you know, showing curiosity, you know, radical curiosity towards the person who wants to use substances, for example, you know, what is it, what is it, do you think that, you know, why, why do you want to do this more, you know? Is there something that's missing in your life? I'm actually, I'm a big fan of substances, so I don't necessarily think it has to be a negative, but, but to this, this person it was. So yeah, showing, you know, showing curiosity, really talking about it, and they still might end up feeling like, no, we're really have different values at this point, but they

• 1:18:16Speaker 05

  would at least understand each other better. But rather than just making an assumption like, well, this is not what we agreed on, so therefore we shouldn't do it. But really to sort of discuss like, what has changed for you over time, you know? Why is it that you're interested in this? So again, maybe it may seem obvious to sort of, but really it's again, getting back to like, really knowing and understanding the other person and for them to really know and understand you, why is it sort of threatening or upsetting for you that you're making this change? And really having that communication, that two-way communication, I think is always beneficial.

• 1:18:47Shankar Vedantam?

  I think one thing that I heard in what Krista said is that she also felt let down because her partner didn't have a conversation with her about this. Her partner just announced, this is something I'm going to be doing. And in some ways, what I hear Krista saying is, you know, bring me along. If you're making this change in your life, don't just make it unilaterally, bring me along as you make the change.

• 1:19:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. Cause again, Krista's not feeling really seen if she, if the, if the other person is making this unilateral change. And, you know, and they may not agree on it, they may not agree on it, but at least they would have this conversation where both feel understood about why they're making the decision that they're making.

• 1:19:24Shankar Vedantam?

  When we come back, could feeling unloved ever be a good thing? You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

• 1:19:35Speaker 05

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• 1:21:18Shankar Vedantam?

  This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Sonia Lupomirsky is a psychologist at the University of California, Riverside. With Harry Reese, she's the author of How to Feel Loved: The Five Mindsets That Get You More of What Matters Most. Today, Sonia is answering listener questions about the psychological experience of feeling loved and what to do when we feel unloved by the people in our lives. Sonia, we received an email from a listener who asked to remain anonymous. She writes that a few years ago, she was feeling burned out, so she was lucky to book a trip to Paris for her birthday with her husband and two teenage children.

• 1:22:00Shankar Vedantam?

  The morning of her birthday started perfectly with breakfast in bed that she had ordered for herself and dappled sunlight pouring in through the windows. But then it became clear that her family hadn't done much planning for the day. She writes, what has stayed with me and still stings is my family's utter lack of effort to do something special for me. Yes, kids are teenagers and my husband was crazy busy with work. However, I would have been happy with a birthday card. A simple wish with a couple of sentences of appreciation could have been scrawled on hotel stationery or a scrap of paper. A candle stuck into a macaroon would have been great. I know my family loves me. They've shown it in many ways before and since. They try to make up for that day, but something about that sad birthday has lingered.

• 1:22:45Shankar Vedantam?

  So Sonia, this listener clearly had expectations of how she wanted to be appreciated on her birthday. Talk for a moment about how she could have communicated these expectations to her family?

• 1:22:56Speaker 05

  I think this is a very common experience. When I heard from this listener, I was thinking, I wonder if she's the one who always plants things and does birthdays? And, and so her family is kind of used to her doing this. And I've actually seen this among friends where the person who's like so responsible, who sort of takes it upon themselves, and then when it's their turn, no one does anything for them. So, you know, just like to, to see people with compassion and try and understand where they're. Where they're coming from. It does not excuse or condone or justify that behavior, the fact that they did not do anything for her birthday. But it does, I think it would lighten, kind of lighten the experience and make it a little bit easier to handle. It's like, ah, they just, you know, they didn't realize it. You know, they were busy.

• 1:23:41Speaker 05

  They, you know, they, they thought that she didn't need it. You know, they, they thought, she knows we love her. They, you know, she doesn't need a card. And again, getting back to communication, this is where maybe nonviolent communication, where she says, you know, I was hurt that you guys didn't do anything. You know, even the smallest thing, you know, I would really, I would feel so much more loved if you, if you did this or this for me. Communication can really help.

• 1:24:08Shankar Vedantam?

  Now, of course, it's possible that this anonymous listener did communicate her expectations and those expectations were still not met. We don't know all the details. But it's also the case, I think, Sonia, that there's something a bit exhausting about feeling like you have to give someone a step-by-step manual for how to make yourself feel loved. I think, I think many of us not only want to feel loved, not only want to feel loved in the way that we want to be loved, but we want the people in our lives to intuit our needs and then to deliver on them.

• 1:24:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. Well, again, there we go again, that we sort of assume that people can read our minds, right? And intuit our needs. But I agree. And sometimes it's maybe just like a mismatch, you know? And hopefully, we all have partners and friends and family members that we've sort of, we're, we're better matched in that way, where we don't have to give them the step-by-step manual. But, because I agree, because that, that puts the onus on us. And then we, we don't feel so loved when the other person is just following our instructions. But I'm also hoping that there's other ways, that say, in this example of the anonymous listener, that like the teenage kids and the husband probably do other things that make her feel loved. And maybe she's not even noticing those things because those are not what she's looking for.

• 1:25:23Speaker 05

  And so hopefully, we all can kind of tune in to all the different ways that people might make us feel loved that we're not maybe even aware of.

• 1:25:32Shankar Vedantam?

  Now, I'm sure that many listeners who are, you know, hearing this conversation are thinking of times in their life when they themselves did not feel loved or someone in their life didn't rise to the occasion. But, but I'm struck that even as we're thinking about these questions, we're not thinking about, in some ways, the, the tables being turned. You know, how often is it that we are not showing other people the love that they need in the way that they want to, to feel loved?

• 1:26:00Speaker 05

  I think this is actually a big issue that sometimes like we feel like we're trying, that we're doing everything we can. And no matter what we do, the other person is not feeling loved. And so our book really speaks to both directions, right? When we don't feel loved and we're really are failing and making the other person feel loved.

• 1:26:18Shankar Vedantam?

  We heard from several listeners who wonder if feeling unloved can ever have a silver lining. Listener Michelle emailed to say that she had an unhappy childhood but has learned from the experience as an adult. She writes, "Now I try to embody the love I want for myself. I give out all the time to children, to other people I randomly meet. I share myself with them. I listen to them and appreciate them. I give love. I embody the love I craved previously. And that feels important and meaningful." I also want to play you a voice message from listener Julia.

• 1:26:50Speaker 03

  Within my immediate family, I guess I felt invisible. I felt invisible. I, I didn't feel like I was really part of the grand scheme of things. And it led me to move to a whole other part of the country and kind of be reborn, in a sense, and meet a lot of people that kind of saw me for me. And, you know, you can't go home again. And I'm, I'm not the same me after all of that. But yeah, it's, I have to say, maybe it was a good thing.

• 1:27:35Speaker 03

  Maybe it's a good thing to not feel loved all the time. And it certainly helped me break out.

• 1:27:45Shankar Vedantam?

  So Sonia, can feeling unloved foster a sense of resilience?

• 1:27:51Speaker 05

  It reminds me of the research that shows that a little adversity is good for us. That people who are, yeah, the most strong and resilient and successful actually have had a little bit of adversity. My kids have actually complained to, to me that we are not giving them enough adversity. But it's so interesting what, what both Julia and Michelle were talking about, like they, they didn't have love in childhood. And now they actually are somehow better off. They're somehow able to sort of take those lessons. And it makes me think about how not feeling loved is actually an evolutionarily adaptive, hardwired signal to us, right? When we don't feel loved, it's a signal to us that we need to do something about it. Maybe we need to connect, reengage, reconnect. You know, when you think about our ancestral past, right?

• 1:28:34Speaker 05

  If we didn't feel loved, that could actually literally be a, you know, danger to our lives, right? We may not find a mate. We may not be able to survive. And so in today's world, right? Not feeling loved almost feels like we're going to die, right? So because it's a signal to us, it's sort of a, a prompt or an encouragement to reengage and to reconnect, it could actually have positive and beneficial consequences.

• 1:28:59Shankar Vedantam?

  Now, we very often feel unloved when we are feeling vulnerable. Listener Tommy found that after a divorce, some friends didn't show up for him the way that he'd hoped.

• 1:29:10Speaker 04

  Friends who I had known for decades sort of brushed off the news. And instead of responding or choosing to respond with frustration or anger at their perceived inability to show up for me, I had to replace that with they're showing up for me how they can. Then there were others that asked me what I needed. And did I need a place to live? Did I need money? Did I need anything? What could they show up for? And the expectation that everybody will show up every time in the same way, I think, puts an outsized expectation

• 1:29:51Speaker 04

  on where individuals are and what they can do in that moment. And I chose to approach those people who maybe didn't show up in the way that I thought they could. But I had that choice to decide if I still loved them as my friends. And I was willing to accept their flaws in my own perception of how I felt they should show up.

• 1:30:19Shankar Vedantam?

  So Sonia, Tommy's prescription is to show more empathy for other people, even when we don't feel like it. And it strikes me that one of the benefits of doing this is that it can reduce our own feelings of resentment. What do you think?

• 1:30:34Speaker 05

  I so agree with Tommy. I think it's such a healthy, evolved, mature response. It reminds me of something a friend who's a coach taught me, which is that some people are just, we're all doing the best we can. And some people are just at capacity. And if they could show up for us more, they would, but they can't. And she kept saying that to me. If they could, they would, but they can't. And this is exactly what's happening with Tommy's friends. And maybe there's other times that they're showing up for him. And so that, that kind of compassion that he has for them, I think is really beautiful. Also reminds me of when my husband's father died. He had, one of his friends never said anything. And he was so upset. He was so upset. And I think they never even apologized for not saying anything.

• 1:31:18Speaker 05

  And I really, now that I look back on it, I think this person just didn't know what to say. Just was so hard for them. They just couldn't. They just couldn't. It was, they're not a bad person. He forgave them. But it's sort of that example that like, for, there's lots of reasons why someone just cannot show up for us in that moment. And to forgive them, really to forgive them and to move on is really healthy.

• 1:31:40Shankar Vedantam?

  I mean, I remember when I was in high school and one of my classmates died. I remember going over to his family home with, with some of my other classmates. And I really didn't have anything to say. I didn't have a word to say. Now, of course, I was, I was a teenager at the time. And so perhaps it's understandable. But in some ways, that's true for all of us, right? At different stages of our lives, you know, we, we can experience other people going through difficult times and really just simply not know how to respond. And we want to say something, but we don't know what to say.

• 1:32:10Speaker 05

  Exactly, we, exactly. We're sort of at capacity or whatever. We're, we're doing the best we can and we just can't. At that moment, we just can't. And, but then to the other person, sometimes it's very hard to accept. And so, but I feel like as we all get older, we're, we're sort of more accepting. Because we've seen, yeah, Shankar, like we've, we've both had these experiences. And we've been on the other side. We've been on both sides of it, right? And I think that helps us sort of move on and forgive.

• 1:32:36Shankar Vedantam?

  What do you do, Sonia, when you don't feel loved?

• 1:32:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's so hard. I, I do try to communicate to the person. There was, yeah, there's one, actually, experience I think I talked about on the, on the previous show, where someone sort of was not, was not texting me and was not communicating with me. And I, and I did communicate that, that I, I needed to have that communication to feel more loved. But then the other thing I do is really comes from advice of the book, is that if, if you don't feel loved, sometimes the response is to try to make the other person feel more loved, to kind of go first, to, to, which seems a little bit unfair, right? To, to show curiosity in them, to show warmth towards them, to truly listen to them. And if that doesn't work, then that's when you might give up and, and walk away.

• 1:33:32Shankar Vedantam?

  Sonia Lubomirsky is a psychologist at the University of California, Riverside. With Harry Rees, she's the author of How to Feel Loved: The Five Mindsets That Get You More of What Matters Most. Sonia Lubomirsky, thank you so much for joining me today on Hidden Brain.

• 1:33:47Speaker 05

  Thank you so much. It's always a pleasure to talk to you, Shankar.

• 1:33:55Shankar Vedantam?

  We also heard today from Edward Lemay. He's a psychologist at the University of Maryland.

• 1:34:06Shankar Vedantam?

  Hidden Brain is produced by Hidden Brain Media. Our audio production team includes Annie Murphy-Paul, Kristin Wong, Laura Kwerel, Ryan Katz, Andrew Chadwick, and Nick Woodbury. Tara Boyle is our executive producer. I'm Hidden Brain's executive editor.

• 1:34:26Shankar Vedantam?

  If you enjoy listening to the show, you'll enjoy watching it as well. Subscribe to our new YouTube channel at youtube.com slash at Hidden Brain so you don't miss any of our videos. I'm Shankar Vedantam. See you soon.

• 1:35:07Speaker 05

  This podcast is supported by Nurtec ODT. Remedy Pant. We know you didn't ask for an interruption, but migraine doesn't wait for the right moment to interrupt either. It just barges in, takes your time, and throws everything off. So when migraine takes your time, take Nurtec. It's for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura in adults. Nurtec can provide pain relief in two hours, which can last up to two days. Ask your healthcare provider if Nurtec is right for you, because your time is for you, not migraine. Don't take if allergic to Nurtec ODT. Allergic reactions can occur even days after use. Get help right away for trouble breathing, rash, swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or throat. High blood pressure and Raynaud's syndrome can occur. Get help for high blood pressure, numbness, coolness, pain,

• 1:35:51Speaker 05

  or color changes in fingers and toes. Common side effect is nausea. For full prescribing information, call 1-833-4-NURTEC or visit Nurtec.com. All right, back to your podcast, playlist, or whatever's keeping you going today. Mr. Monopoly here. Miss me? Monopoly is back at McDonald's with millions of prizes. A 2027 Jeep Cherokee, a Carnival Cruise vacation, gift cards from DoorDash and Best Buy, feel and play in the McDonald's app. Get your bag! No purchase necessary. 50 U.S. and D.C. age 18 plus. See Play at McD.com for rules and Play at McD.com/amoe for info and playing without purchase by mail by November 2nd. Chances card game ends November 8th. Game ends November 22, 2026. See rules for prize details.

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