Are you ditching your values to fit in? Todd Rose on avoiding peer pressure

Smoking and going to that cool gig... think you left caving to peer pressure behind at high school? Scientist and social entrepreneur Todd Rose says we’re still desperately doing our best to fit in, whether we realise it or not! In this chat with Fearne, Todd explains that it feels important to hold the ‘correct’ opinions in the eyes of our social group. Why? As humans we’re wired to want to belong to a community, so often misrepresent our values for fear of upsetting others. The word ‘authenticity’ is thrown around a lot, but what does it really mean? Todd explains how to make sure your public self aligns with your public self so you’re not living in a state of confusion and anxiety. Plus, why not speaking your mind has very real implications on your physical health, and how self-silencing is affecting everything from your friendships to how you vote. Todd’s book, Collective Illusions, is out now. If you liked this episode of Happy Place, you might also like: Dr Julie Smith https://pod.fo/e/41e114 Patric Gagne https://pod.fo/e/23da85 Break free from people pleasing https://pod.fo/e/3ab356 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:01Fearne Cotton?

  Hello, I'm Fern Cotton and this is Happy Place, the show that supports you informing your own opinions. Today, I'm chatting to Todd Rose.

• 0:10Speaker 01

  This concept of authenticity is a gateway to a really great life. I think we're so used to trying to be likeable that what we really go for is fitting in. Fitting in is, I'll accept you if. Belonging is, I am accepted, valued and even loved for who I am. We like to think that we want everyone to agree with us. Now, look, nothing wrong with that. When people agree with you, that feels good. It turns out that's not really the primary motivation. It's actually that you want to be understood.

• 0:39Fearne Cotton?

  If there was ever a time to be having this chat with Todd, it's now. It is a very strange time that we're living in. And it doesn't take someone who's obsessed with watching the news to tell you that we're in a very divisive place. And one that can feel at times distressing and hopeless and leave you just feeling like, I don't know, untrusting of other people? Or like everybody's at each other and arguing? Or there's just a lot of hatred out there?

• 1:14Fearne Cotton?

  Now, I'm not going to sit here and give anyone solutions as to how we solve any of this stuff. I'm like you, I'm just sat there going, what the hell is going on? But what we can do, I think, is dive into the psychology behind it. That interests me greatly and Todd is our man. Todd is a scientist, a professor and a social entrepreneur. He co-founded and is the CEO of Populous, a non-partisan think tank dedicated to building a world where everyone has the chance to live a really fulfilling life in a thriving society. That's what we want, right? I think that's what all of us want.

• 1:56Fearne Cotton?

  All of us just want to live in a lovely life of our own, but in a thriving society that feels cohesive, like a collective. And I feel like we're very far from that. And that's why this book... Interested me greatly. His book is called Collective Illusions and it's fascinating. It looks at how we end up either in a collective, thinking in a certain way, and how we're manipulated to think in a certain way, or how we simply appear pressured into thinking a certain way. And often how, a lot of the time, we assume things about other people and how they think, but we are entirely wrong. And this doesn't just apply to societal and political issues.

• 2:39Fearne Cotton?

  It applies to everyday life. Like everyday, the smallest decisions that we're making, how so much of this is informed by the pressure of what we assume everyone else is doing or what we believe is the norm. Honestly, this one relates to everybody. There's not a single person that this chat won't touch in some way. So we really dug into lots of interesting places in this chat. Like why as humans, we want to belong as a group, which again, impacts us hugely. The difference between private opinion and public opinions. That is a big one. And, and this is something that he has got great stats on. He's done a lot of research into that exact topic.

• 3:19Fearne Cotton?

  And why, and this is huge, why silencing yourself could have implications on your physical health.

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• 4:28Speaker 04

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• 4:32Speaker 05

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• 5:01Fearne Cotton?

  Right, let's do it. Here's the show.

• 5:24Fearne Cotton?

  Todd, it is so lovely to have you not only in the UK, but on the podcast today.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  It's so great to be here.

• 5:29Fearne Cotton?

  I loved reading this book. What a fascinating read, Collective Illusions. We've not, you know, we've done this podcast for over eight years now, and I don't think we've gone anywhere near this subject matter. We've, we've probably talked around it.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, listen, you've been talking about the solutions for a while.

• 5:44Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  So that's why I was very excited to talk to you.

• 5:47Fearne Cotton?

  I'm really, really looking forward to digging into it. First of all, just as a broad sweep, what is a collective illusion?

• 5:54Speaker 01

  So, look, it's basically group think, but you're wrong about the group.

• 5:58Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  So like more formally, it's a phenomenon where most people in a group end up going along with something.

• 6:05Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  That they don't privately agree with.

• 6:07Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Only because they incorrectly think most everybody else agrees with it.

• 6:11Fearne Cotton?

  Which actually probably informs much more of our lives than we care to believe.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  What's so funny about this is as scientists, we've known about this phenomenon for a hundred years. We've been saying it. It's only been since the advent of social media that these have become like a runaway train. Because think about like, you're wrong about your group, right? It's one thing to be wrong about another group. This is the group that matters to you.

• 6:35Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  And you want to belong, but like, and this is what's so interesting about these illusions, right? Like how they happen, because you might think like, well, so is someone manipulating me? Which can happen, but it's actually just the technology slamming into our biology.

• 6:51Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  If you don't mind, I'll just give you the quick, short version of this, how does this happen?

• 6:55Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Is like, we're hardwired as human beings to want to belong.

• 7:01Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  To be part of groups, right? My background's in neuroscience. I mean, this is like a fundamental truth. We're a social species. Okay, but to get that belonging, you'd actually have to know what your group believes. Right? Because otherwise, what are you conforming to?

• 7:14Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  So here's what's crazy. You'd think like, okay, if belonging is so important, then your brain must have some really sophisticated way of figuring out, what does my group believe? Turns out, it's the flimsiest shortcut imaginable.

• 7:27Fearne Cotton?

  It's wild.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  Your brain assumes the loudest voices, repeated the most, are the majority.

• 7:33Fearne Cotton?

  And that is mimicked so literally on social media. We, we, we listen to the loudest voices. We, we look for the biggest, boldest accounts and we're like, they must be right.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  They must be right. And the thing is, is that shortcut evolved, so it must have worked back in the day. But you put it into a social media environment. So if you look at any given platform, let's just take what was Twitter.

• 7:55Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Now X. So research has shown that 80% of all the content on that platform is created by only 10% of the users. And it turns out that 10% isn't remotely representative of the general public. They're extreme on almost every social issue. So if you think about this, so you, just imagine the problem. 10% of people hold some fringe crazy view, which is almost always going to be true.

• 8:21Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  In society, you can find 10%.

• 8:23Fearne Cotton?

  Of course.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  The Earth's flat.

• 8:25Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  We never went to the moon, whatever. And it's 10%, but you think it's 80%.

• 8:32Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  So unless you're willing to go against your group, which we can talk about all the reasons why biologically it's hard to do. Then you'll, you'll just say nothing, right? You'll self-silence, or you'll start lying. You'll start saying exactly what you think you're supposed to say to be with the group.

• 8:48Fearne Cotton?

  And at worst, believing it.

• 8:50Speaker 01

  Well, so this is the trick, right? At first, you know, at first, you don't believe it.

• 8:54Fearne Cotton?

  Right.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  Right? So I'll give you an example from, from the States that we tracked with our research. There was the big movement of defund the police, right? And the folks on the left publicly 60% said, oh yeah, we want to defund the police. It was nine percent in private. So we have, this is what we do. We do private opinion research, get around this and nine percent. I was like, okay, but they knew that there was a right answer, that the fringes in their political movement were making these very loud claims. People were like, yeah, I guess I want to defund the police. You're like, you don't, you really don't want to.

• 9:27Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  And so we've been, we've been studying this, this phenomenon of collective illusions. Cause you think, okay, is it just a couple of topics? Well, in the States where we have almost all of our data, there's over a hundred issues where we're just wrong about what our own groups believe.

• 9:42Fearne Cotton?

  I bet, I bet there are millions, like it's tiny moments in every day.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  It's exactly right.

• 9:48Fearne Cotton?

  And we think that we're these autonomous creatures walking around going, I've decided to do this. I've decided to do that. And you realize from everything, from the clothes you're wearing to the food you're eating, to who you're voting for, is more than likely influenced by this manner of thinking. So your studies are fascinating because you do these private studies. So that involves you explaining to individuals, this is just me and you, this is a private study.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  So we have to create that experience and so quantitatively, right? So the trick with all these methodologies, they're called private opinion methods.

• 10:21Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Is people have to have anonymity. They have to know that there's literally no way I can know what you're saying and what we call like plausible deniability.

• 10:28Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  So there's this funny phenomenon when you're taking polls and surveys, you sort of think, what if someone burst in the room as I was answering something? Like it's dumb, it's never going to happen. But people are like, oh, you might know that I clicked that I'm, I agree with this. So we have these sophisticated methods that actually build that anonymity and plausible deniability. And they're, we didn't invent the methods. That's why I can tell you they're good.

• 10:50Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  Smarter people than I am invented them. We just were the first to deploy them at scale on social issues.

• 10:57Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  And so like, I'll give you an example in, in the States, we predicted Trump's final vote percentage within a half a percentage point, six months in advance. And no one was even anywhere near that because there were segments of like Gen Z that were lying about their willingness to vote for him. They knew they weren't supposed to say they, they would. And so they were saying, oh no, I wouldn't. No, I'm not voting for him. It's like, oh, actually you're going to.

• 11:23Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  It's like most political issues these days are under these illusions because you know, everybody's like right at each other and but it's crazy as we're talking about it's not just these big issues. It's like our whole lives are shot through with millions of these examples. And it's like, I could see why maybe if your job depended on it, you maybe don't speak up. You know, I mean, I don't think that's a good thing, but I can at least, you know, you don't want to lose your job. You gotta provide for your family. But it's like, we've gotten so used to living in the lie that we just do it over the most mundane small things.

• 12:00Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  And we we sort of think, oh, what's the, what's the problem?

• 12:04Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. Do you know what? I, I lived and breathed this when I first started therapy because I reckon it took me near to a year to actually say what I really wanted to say in therapy.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  To a therapist, right?

• 12:16Fearne Cotton?

  To a therapist who I knew would keep me completely anonymous, who I knew would be professional and private. And also I knew wouldn't judge me. And even if she did, I shouldn't have cared because it's a paid transaction between me and a professional who I want to help me. But I reckon it took a good year for me to really start unfiltering and saying things that I was embarrassed about, things I was terrified about, and also my true feelings around certain things that were really plaguing me because I wanted to become, I wanted to come across as this like decent person.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. So I mean, it's really important. And I think that we should all give ourselves a little bit of just grace that it's like, how do we get here where we end up misrepresenting the things that matter to us? It's like, when we've studied this, I, at first, I thought it was all going to be this sort of cancel culture. That's a small percentage.

• 13:06Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Most of the time, it's just two, two real motives. One is, most people are decent people and they don't want to offend. So imagine if, if, if I think that you really don't agree with me on issues, I was like, you know, I'm not gonna say it.

• 13:19Fearne Cotton?

  No, no, no. Yeah.

• 13:20Speaker 01

  And why rock the boat?

• 13:21Fearne Cotton?

  Exactly. I don't want to ruin their day.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  No, we're having a good time. We're having a good, like, but in reality, it turns out with our private opinion, they were like, oh, actually, odds are you actually agree and we're just not even talking anymore.

• 13:32Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  You're saying, yeah, I agree. I agree with this other thing that I don't really believe. And you're like, yeah, me too, right? And we're all just lying to each other. It's shocking, right? So that's the first one. And then the second one is this broader desire to please, right? Which, as you've written about, comes from a lot of different places, but not just, right? And it's, but the thing I think is fascinating with you is I think, you know, you had mentioned in your writings.

• 13:58Fearne Cotton?

  I can't believe you read my book, but lol. Great. Amazing. Thank you so much.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  I really liked them. Really did. Well, our team read them.

• 14:06Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, thank you.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  But this idea of where, you know, you didn't quite say it this way, but I think is what you meant. Like, almost from an early age, you're being paid, it's monetized likability.

• 14:17Fearne Cotton?

  Yep.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Right? And so it's like, without even realizing it, you had not just the social incentive, which everybody has, but you now have a financial and status incentive to be likable.

• 14:29Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  Which is just means be like them.

• 14:31Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  Right?

• 14:32Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, exactly.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Without even thinking about it, you can suddenly get into this path of most of the decisions are not really about an inward reflection on who you are, like what you actually believe, what you prefer.

• 14:46Fearne Cotton?

  Yep.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  But it's like, almost like calibrated to the audience. And, you know, I could, for me, it really struck me as like, yeah, that's something we all go through, but just not with that added, like, all the incentives for you were pointing toward be likable.

• 15:02Fearne Cotton?

  Completely.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  And I think that, you know, in our broader society, I think women in general.

• 15:05Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 15:06Speaker 01

  Have that pressure more, you know what I mean? We tolerate men being less likable.

• 15:11Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  Right?

• 15:12Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, you can be in a position of power and be authoritarian and no one bats an eyelid. But I think for most women who say, you need to do this, I don't want you to do that. It's like, what a bitch, you know? It's just the general consensus is.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 15:24Fearne Cotton?

  They don't have that voice.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  Exactly. So, so when you combine these things, some of us feel pressure, there's real, there's real pressure saying, hey, you've got the wrong view. This could get you canceled. But then we're just decent people who don't want to offend, but, but remember, we're wrong. Or I need to be likable. And so that. When we look at the kinds of people who are the most susceptible to these illusions, not surprisingly, young people.

• 15:49Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  But CEOs, because if you're a CEO, like a CEO, she might say, look, I care about my customers and I care about my employees. So you're trying to be sensitive to what they want, but you're susceptible to the loudest voices repeated the most.

• 16:04Fearne Cotton?

  So then you mitigate what you actually believe is right in the first place.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  And then politicians. Because it's like, I just want to get reelected.

• 16:11Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  And so we did this, you know, the defund the police movement that I just shared that example. We actually spent time when Biden was president of the US with Biden and his team. Because they were like, well, we read the book, what should we be thinking about? And we're like, this defund the police movement, it's just not true. And they're like, oh, no, no, no, that one, you're wrong. We get so many calls, and I'm like, right.

• 16:34Fearne Cotton?

  But they're lying.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  People who are really upset.

• 16:37Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  And they're calling you over and over again, you know what I mean? And it's, so it feels real. And this is the hardest thing with collective illusions is we now live in a time when you cannot trust your brain to tell you what your group thinks. You're just going to be wrong, but it feels right.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  So we're really trapped by our biology here where, you know, when we're told, when we do like brain imaging studies, when I say like, we have this bias to belong, it is shocking. Like, it's not just a psychological thing. Like, study after study shows you just being told that your opinion aligns with your group, triggers a dopamine reward response, like the same areas of your brain that hard drugs activate.

• 17:20Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Like, it's powerful.

• 17:22Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  And conversely, when we tell you that your opinions misalign to your group, it triggers what we call an error signal in your brain, this cascading electrical signal that's meant to disrupt attention, memory.

• 17:35Fearne Cotton?

  I know that feeling.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is a little like, something's wrong.

• 17:38Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  Pay attention.

• 17:40Fearne Cotton?

  But you know, your nervous system is being electrocuted. It's the worst feeling.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  It's the worst feeling because it's meant to be bad. Because something's wrong, your brain doesn't know what to do. Pay attention, right? Just figure it out.

• 17:53Fearne Cotton?

  This is prehistoric stuff, like, you know, we needed to be in tribes to not get eaten by a tiger kind of thing.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure. Listen, you do not survive as a human being by yourself.

• 18:01Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  You don't.

• 18:02Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  And so.

• 18:04Fearne Cotton?

  We're so basic.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  It's so basic. And if you think about it, it's so valuable, like being hardwired to be part of a group. You survive better.

• 18:13Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  As a pack, like that's just, we're not, from a strength perspective, would be eaten alive back in the day, right?

• 18:19Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  So you band together, but then that also allows cooperation, which humans are uniquely capable of. Right? And you could do way more together if you actually cooperate.

• 18:28Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  So how would you incentivize that? Well, you select for those things that make me more likely to actually take into account your interests, your things, you know, like. But that means I'm sensitive to what you think and feel.

• 18:39Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 18:41Speaker 01

  Through empathy and things like this. And so that's great. And you're hardwired to really be aligned to that. But then, like anything, it can be misused and abused, and it can become a mechanism of control.

• 18:54Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  And the consequence, and I think we could talk about this, like, we lose our authenticity. And that term has been used and abused as well.

• 19:03Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, my God.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  To the point where I almost don't even like saying it.

• 19:05Fearne Cotton?

  I don't even know what it means anymore. Like, it's so overused. I'm, I'm sort of obsessed with the idea of it. Because I don't think any of us really have a clue what it means.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  No.

• 19:15Fearne Cotton?

  Or people go, oh, you're like, you're so authentic on Instagram, whatever. It's like, what does it even mean? We don't know who we are anymore.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  And I think most people at best, that's just a word we use for, I don't think you're being fake. But like, do you know what I mean? It's almost like we're so used to the Instagram life that someone who even reveals something slightly flawed.

• 19:36Fearne Cotton?

  Now, they don't wear makeup. Oh, my God, you're so authentic.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  Because at best, we're like, well, you're not getting anything out of that. So that must be closer to who you think you are.

• 19:44Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  But I think it's really unfortunate because this concept of authenticity is a gateway to a really great life. You know, it's really important. Most positive psychologists, the humanistic psychologists, saw authenticity as literally the ultimate goal.

• 20:01Fearne Cotton?

  And how can that? But if we, if we. Somehow land on it, which seems almost impossible in this day and age. What benefit can we see?

• 20:08Speaker 01

  So this is it. So first of all, I'll give you my definition of it, which I think holds up in the research. It's, it's not that you're right, right? Authenticity and all the benefits that accrue from it is about the public version of yourself aligning as closely to who you believe you are in private.

• 20:25Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  Now, again, you could be wrong. That's okay, right? So if today I think I really like chocolate ice cream and don't like vanilla ice cream. And so you say, let's have ice cream. I say, okay, I want chocolate. And then I taste it. I'm like, oh, I don't actually like this. I like vanilla. I wasn't inauthentic the first time.

• 20:40Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  Right? And so it's, it's again, we tend to think it's like, well, how can you be authentic? People, it's hard to know yourself. Yeah, it is really hard to know yourself. But it's like, in any given moment, you know, like you know, when you're not being

• 20:51Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  Quite honest, right? Like, I mean, sometimes we can

• 20:54Fearne Cotton?

  Icky feeling.

• 20:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, listen, there's plenty of times where we fool ourselves. So let's not worry about that right now. But the times when you just like, yeah, no, I didn't say anything there. Or I went along with this and I don't really agree.

• 21:06Fearne Cotton?

  Or you actually totally compromise your values, which we've all done over the years, especially in teenhood. You know, that's

• 21:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:11Fearne Cotton?

  One of the parts of growing up, like you just ditched your values.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  And what's shocking to me is I think if people understood the, what the research shows about the personal and social costs of inauthenticity and the upside of being authentic, it would become, I believe, like the most important thing that we strive for.

• 21:29Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  So I'll give you an example. Longitudinal research on this shows that this was done for women. I'm assuming it would hold for men, but this study was about women. That levels of self silencing, so withholding what I believe

• 21:44Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  Is a major predictor of cardiovascular disease for women. Like strokes, heart attacks, like these things like

• 21:54Fearne Cotton?

  Because of the tension that your body's holding?

• 21:57Speaker 01

  And the elevated baseline levels of cortisol.

• 22:00Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  Cortisol is a fight or flight kind of triggering mechanism, right? It's meant to be for survival. In short bursts, it's really good organizer of energy in your body. But circulating in your blood at elevated levels, it breaks down blood vessels. It's like drain off.

• 22:16Fearne Cotton?

  I mean, this is, this is the connection between You know, how we're thinking, what we're saying, not saying, and the physical manifestation, which, you know, maybe 20, 30 years ago would have been seen as woo woo. But now we've got the science to go.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  Isn't that funny how that works?

• 22:29Fearne Cotton?

  This adds up.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  Like, I always love that, you know, what was woo woo and now suddenly is like, well, we know, actually, this is just true. You know, we're catching up to that and it's, but you know, you think, so the other thing that was interesting in this particular study I'm thinking about is if you look at mental health issues, particularly around like anxiety, depression, eating disorders. So women tend to be overrepresented in those.

• 22:53Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I've done all three.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. So it turns out that if you control for levels of self silencing, because women self silence more.

• 23:03Fearne Cotton?

  Yep.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  It actually, they're not statistically different anymore, men and women. So it's like, it's contributing directly to the cardiovascular problems, but a whole bunch of other secondary effects. So we sit here like riddled with anxiety, you know, not feeling good about ourselves. And it's like, we don't realize that some of this is directly attributable to these small decisions we make every day.

• 23:28Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  To just not live in our truth at all.

• 23:31Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, and of course that builds up and becomes, can be catastrophic in a physical sense.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  It becomes habit, right? We just do it. We don't even, like, the number of times when you think like, wait, I just went along with it, like, there was no even a reason. I could have said what I think. There was no threat.

• 23:47Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  But it's just habit.

• 23:48Fearne Cotton?

  And also, I guess what you have to be able to do, or at least try and practice, which I've been trying to put, flex these muscles in the last year, is when you stop self silencing, or you say something contradictory, I don't want to do that, that's not for me, or I don't want to partake in this, you have to be able to ride out the other side of it, which is a slight discomfort.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:11Fearne Cotton?

  Which in the moment feels horrible.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  Feels horrible, right?

• 24:12Fearne Cotton?

  But is much better than years of.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:16Fearne Cotton?

  Clenching my jaw, I'm absolutely livid, or I'm resentful, or whatever it is, because we're not saying our bit.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  And I hundred percent agree. And you think about, if you just think about, like, okay, that unwillingness to respect. Fully disagree or just, you know, say, there's something that matters to me and I'm not saying it. You think, okay, I don't want that. Like, I think you got it exactly right. There's a moment of discomfort. It's just perceived.

• 24:40Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  And how many times, you know, you write about this, like times where you're like, you know what? No, sorry, birthday party. Just you can't like.

• 24:47Fearne Cotton?

  Don't wanna go.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's like, there's a respectful way you you gave a, which is always a justification.

• 24:53Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 24:53Speaker 01

  Right? So if you say, no, thank you. No, I don't want to go. That could be like, oh, so you don't like me?

• 24:58Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, it's how you say it, the tone.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  Yes. And it turns out, oh, okay. So that was gonna be okay.

• 25:03Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  But that you're worried, like, what will they think? And that, like, wanna fill the air, especially when they're in person. You just wanna like.

• 25:12Fearne Cotton?

  Anything.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  Anything.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  Awkward. But if you realize, like, like, for me, I will perseverate on the thing I didn't like. And it just, you'll hold it aside. And you become resentful. You guess it's just the the price you pay on the back end for avoiding that moment of discomfort. Once you're aware of that, it's just like, this is ridiculous. Why would I ever choose that?

• 25:35Fearne Cotton?

  I mean, you could walk through, having heard you even just talk for this few moments, you could now go about and walk through the rest of your day. Analyzing every decision you make, everything you don't say, everything that you do align with, even though it feels a bit off. And it could get very interesting, I think.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  In a hurry.

• 25:54Fearne Cotton?

  Very interesting. You could get a notepad and write down a million things you've noticed.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  So this is exactly what I would suggest people do is before you try to change it, right? Because if awkward, just do that. Like, document, don't even try to adjust it. Just be like, oh, you know what? I didn't actually say that and I felt this way or I wanted to do, I I wanted to go to lunch here. I just assumed everybody was there. I didn't say anything. It's okay. And and it's okay. Maybe that's fine. Maybe it's you. You liked keeping the peace.

• 26:23Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  But just document it. It's shocking.

• 26:27Fearne Cotton?

  Shocking.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  How much of our lives are just literally, we're back to your life. We don't have the financial incentive. And yet, we're still led around by likable.

• 26:39Fearne Cotton?

  Yes. Do you know what's so, a sort of another layer? And I wonder if this ever comes up in any level of research is. I sometimes have this feeling. That I'm not sure if I'm a good person or not. And if I just do the right thing or say the right thing, that is somehow proof to myself that I'm a good person. Because I think we're told so often, and we might not again believe it, that if you think in this way, if you vote in this way, if you do this certain thing, if you speak in a certain way, if you act in a certain way at work or as a woman, or whatever category you're looking at, that you are then an acceptable human. Whatever that means, you know, it's all just, we're fed it and then we believe it.

• 27:22Fearne Cotton?

  And I think often we use it as a marker of like where our moral compass sits and just that fundamental, I want to be a good person, but I need some sort of proof to myself that I am. And I think that sometimes stops us from doing the thing that we actually really want to do.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, this is, this is right. It's like, and think about it, if you, if you didn't want to be a good person, it wouldn't affect you.

• 27:45Fearne Cotton?

  No, yeah, you just live freely.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  It's coming from a really, yeah, kind of be, kind of be nice once in a while. Just, just flip a switch for a day.

• 27:52Fearne Cotton?

  Exactly. Do you know what, we actually had on, one of the most fascinating guests was a lady called Patrick Gagne, who is a sociopath, clinically a sociopath, and also now helps other people with sociopathy and living of, you know, she's a mum. Oh, wonderful and intelligent, obviously, and just fascinating to talk to. And she has a husband and children, lives a perfectly regular life. But the, I often think I've got like too much empathy, too much of that going on, which can cause me immense amounts of pain in all sorts of situations with other human beings, that she doesn't get. And she's like, I feel sorry for you. Like, I hear you and I get this, I feel bad for you. Because she doesn't have that.

• 28:37Fearne Cotton?

  She can make decisions from a place of, I want to do this and I'm going to do it. And has learned how to live in the confines of society, to rub along with other people, do her job to help other people and to feel like a sense of purpose, even though she doesn't have that immense empathy. That's the opposite of what we're talking about.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  That's the opposite, I'll tell you.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  While there's days where.

• 28:59Fearne Cotton?

  Enviable.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's days where I'd be like, boy, that'd be nice. It would be miserable.

• 29:04Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  I'd rather start from the place of empathy and and try to dial that back a little bit.

• 29:09Fearne Cotton?

  Yes. And how would you do that? If people out there are like, God, you know, I've spoke to so many women, more so, who are like, I am drowning in trying to keep everybody happy, spinning a million plates and doing the right thing. I think it's always the should rather than this is what I want to do. I should do this. How do we break free from that?

• 29:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. And shoulds just could with shame.

• 29:30Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, totally.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  Here's the thing. Let's step back and realize, okay, so in the case we're in now, you should always start by assuming you're probably wrong about what other people think anyway. Okay, so so just imagine if that's true, then how would you behave? If I'm sitting here thinking, look, I'm pretty sure you don't agree with me on some issue. So it's it's important to me, but I'm not going to bring it up.

• 29:55Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  If I told you, you're you're probably wrong. It's like, wait, so we could have bonded over that?

• 30:00Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, we could have had a great conversation.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  Like, yeah, we could be friends. We could. So we're just not going to do that. Right? So it's like, just recognize that that that feeling of sort of group think and getting pulled into conformity is bad enough as it is. But again, you're about to conform to something that the group or other people don't probably even want.

• 30:20Fearne Cotton?

  The best example I've heard of this is when you talk about this study in the Netherlands and it's a basic hot or not. Can you just talk us through? Because I think this is

• 30:28Speaker 01

  This is the greatest.

• 30:29Fearne Cotton?

  Such a great way of discussing it.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  Well, my colleague did this because when we when we talk about we have this bias to conform, you know, to belong. He wanted to know, like, how far does that go? Right? Because you could see certain things having conformity bias. So he tried to pick the most subjective thing he could think of, which is who you think is attractive. And we all like beauties in the eye of the beholder.

• 30:50Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 30:50Speaker 01

  Right? We also have like, really? You think he's good looking? It gives you, there's hope for all of us, right? But the

• 30:58Speaker 01

  But so clever study. He brings people in, puts them in an FMRI scanner and scans their brain while he's doing this task. It's literally just a couple hundred faces and your job is to play hot or not.

• 31:10Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  Right. It's really like a scale of one to five. How attractive do you think they are? Okay, so the task goes like this. Face comes up, you're like, oh, that's a five, pretty hot. Right after you give your, your score, a number appears above it in the scanner that tells you what the average score was for everyone who'd done the study before you. So that's a group. You don't even know these people. You'll never meet them. So why should that matter? But it does.

• 31:39Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 31:40Speaker 01

  Okay, here's the great news. That group doesn't exist. It's made up. Okay, so here you are plugging along. You say five. Now it's all rigged because it's all made up. For a quarter of the time, it makes it so that you and your group are identical.

• 31:56Fearne Cotton?

  Right.

• 31:56Speaker 01

  You said five, oh, your group says five.

• 31:58Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, well done you, you got it right.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  You got it right. And then a quarter of the time, you say five, it goes to the opposite extreme. Oh, though people thought it was a one. Ooh, you think that's good looking? Right, that's it. And then you go through a couple hundred of these. And at the end, they go, oh, shoot. Sorry about that. For whatever reason, your responses weren't recorded. So if we gave you a little more money, would you just quickly? You don't need to scan your brain. We just, could you just quickly give us your responses? And they randomized the images again. And you just give, okay, so here's what's cool. When you're in the scanner and that five and five shows up, that triggers that dopamine reward response. It's like a, it's just a drug.

• 32:40Fearne Cotton?

  Everything's aligned in the world.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  It is the greatest feeling ever. Okay, when you're told you're against your group, we see that error signal cascading. It's so adversive. It feels awful. It feels like something's really wrong. Okay, so not surprisingly, when they were asked to do the task again, almost inevitably, they moved their scores to be closer to the group. They didn't even know they did it. Like you interview them afterwards, they'd say, no, I didn't.

• 33:07Fearne Cotton?

  How funny.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  No, and, and the thing is, is they don't remember. It's like a couple hundred faces.

• 33:11Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  Going pretty quick.

• 33:13Fearne Cotton?

  Your brain's doing the work without you even knowing.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  That five was the wrong answer. Like that face, that's attractive or it's not attractive. You thought it is? You're wrong.

• 33:23Fearne Cotton?

  It's mad.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  It's crazy. So it's like, so we don't want to lose, like the, the human connection is part of what makes life worth living. And so what I would say is that we can talk about sort of how you get back on that path. But just realizing that like, we tend to think of like, that desire for authenticity is somehow at odds with our desire for connection. Like, like if I'm authentic, I, how, like, it'll ruin my belonging, right? But the research is crystal clear. That's the, the exact opposite. Because instead of belonging, you think about this, you know, like, um, this kind of weird analogy, but like, you know, like, so we've evolved to, with eating, for example, you start eating and then you get feeling like you're

• 34:08Speaker 01

  full. And it tells you to stop. And you know, over time, the food that was available to us was healthy and you're getting nutrition. We don't feel when you get nutrition. You just get, now you get McDonald's and all this stuff and you get, you feel full, but it takes a while till you realize you're not actually getting any nutrition.

• 34:27Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  Right? And it wrecks your life. I think this is how it is with belonging now.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  I think we're so used to trying to be likable, that what we really go for is fitting in.

• 34:40Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  And we think that's the same thing as belonging.

• 34:43Fearne Cotton?

  It's a poor version of it.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  It is. It's an empty calories version.

• 34:46Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  It gives you something. Let's just be clear. Like, I'd rather fit in.

• 34:50Fearne Cotton?

  It's junk belonging.

• 34:50Speaker 01

  It's junk belonging. Because if you think about it, like, fitting in is, I'll accept you if.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  Right? And again, in your book, you went through all the, you'll like me if, you know what I mean? So those are all this conditional stuff. Belonging is, I am accepted, valued, and even loved for who I am.

• 35:08Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 35:09Speaker 01

  And it doesn't mean you have work to do. It doesn't mean that you're a great person all the time, right? But there's just something about, and we all know that. If, if you, if you're in a, some kind of relationship with a friend, a partner, a sibling, a parent, where you just feel like, you know what? It almost doesn't matter what I did.

• 35:26Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. They'll still love me.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:28Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  There, there's like, no greater feeling in the world.

• 35:30Fearne Cotton?

  The best feeling.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  And you only get that when you're authentic.

• 35:37Speaker 06

  I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone and I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh. Anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them. Everybody, listen up. Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade-in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for Watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.

• 36:09Speaker 07

  Hello, I'm Joanna Fletcher. And I'm Marco Burchella. And this is Boots Off. We are friends who've spent a decade together, walking up mountains, across deserts, and along coastlines with some seriously awesome groups of humans. And something happens when you're out there, feet on the ground, surrounded by nature. The conversations just spill out of you. This series is about the adversities that lead to adventure. The adventures that lead to adversity. And how life can be one big adventure in itself. Listen every Thursday. Just search for Boots Off.

• 36:45Fearne Cotton?

  But if we go back to our teen years, a time when you, it's all based on conditions. There's very little understanding at that point that I can do whatever I want and my peer group will still accept me. It is, for most of us, the case is we copy each other's hair, clothes, habits, music taste. I mean, I used to date boys and I would ditch all of my music, my CDs, and go, I'm just going to listen to the band they like. And I would hate their bands. I think this is absolute shit, but you would just listen to it and go along with it because you desperately want to be part of something. You talk in your book about sticking tobacco in your lip because all your mates were doing it. And then you find out down the line, they weren't even enjoying it.

• 37:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're just all doing this stupid stuff. Like, it's so ridiculous.

• 37:30Fearne Cotton?

  So ridiculous.

• 37:31Speaker 01

  What's interesting about this is, again, this kind of mechanism, what's valuable about it is social learning. So this kind of like, wait, I'm going to imitate this stuff. It's like, I can learn things with not the hard way. Like, you know what I mean? In fact, if I'm in some faraway country, lost in a jungle. And I'm like, I'm hungry and there's someone who's local and they're like, yeah, I know those look like apples. Don't eat them. I'm not going to be like, what will you know? I'm like, you probably know.

• 38:00Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  And it's just smart.

• 38:02Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  So humans are exquisitely good at extracting information from the experiences of others. And sharing that.

• 38:10Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 38:10Speaker 01

  And that bubbles all the way up to culture and things like this. So that's good.

• 38:14Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  So it's okay to be like, I tried on different music.

• 38:18Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did it. I did it for a boy.

• 38:20Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 38:21Speaker 01

  But I tried on, as long as you realize it's like, I'm sampling.

• 38:25Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  You know, and I'm getting something out of that, but it's like, it's very different because I'm sure there's occasions where you were like, and it turned out I kind of like that music.

• 38:33Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah, of course. You learn, like you say, and also I think there is an element like the jungle analogy of like picking which food you're going to eat. It is a safety issue. I think you do feel emotionally safe or unsafe. And I even have it, I'm much more aware of it at this point in my life where I could be in a group or in a social setting. And I just think, I don't feel safe. There's something about this where I just feel like this is sketchy and I'm not actually in danger. But my nervous system is firing off on all cylinders. And I'm like, I don't feel safe. I, I'm going to leave and I will just leave and walk out now. I would have stayed before and just felt like I was literally like being electrocuted all night. But now I'm like, I'm, I'm out. It is like a safety thing.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  No, I mean, for sure. And that's the thing is that if you just think over evolutionary time, it was like, you were at risk.

• 39:21Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  And so we are exquisitely sensitive to the slightest like ostracization.

• 39:28Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  Like, oh, we're about to get kicked out. Yeah, we're about to get kicked out.

• 39:33Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  And our brains will read cues like crazy. It turns out we're not terribly good at reading the cues.

• 39:39Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  Because most of our safety issues are psychological, not, I mean, there are some real, it's a urine danger.

• 39:46Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  But psychological danger is every bit as real to your brain.

• 39:50Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 39:51Speaker 01

  And so it's okay. It's like, okay, look, I feel, I feel like I'm in danger. And it's like, just being aware, it's, it's like being aware that, and being a little like generous with yourself, like, oh, this is how my brain works, right? And it's good for survival, not so good for thriving.

• 40:07Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Like, and your brain doesn't care that you're happy. This is what I was like, like, you want to be happy? Your brain does not care. Your brain has one goal, which is survival.

• 40:17Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 40:18Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 40:18Fearne Cotton?

  That's going to override everything, unless you're a particularly strong character.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 40:22Fearne Cotton?

  The examples of strong character in popular culture are interesting, or just culture in general. You've either got people that stick their head above the parapet and say the thing that no one else is saying. If we look at like the emperor's new clothes kind of fable, in those situations, when one person puts their hand up and says, this is bullshit, or I don't agree. We often see a collective assault on that person. They're cancelled, they're gone. I mean, sometimes people are saying unbelievably awful things. But if they're truly coming from a place where they believe that there is injustice or something's not right. Often we see that person cancelled, or, or everybody's against them, or whatever situation it is. And we think, oh, God, I'm never doing that.

• 41:05Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 41:06Fearne Cotton?

  There is no way I could, like, I've just seen that happen. I'm just going to keep quiet over here. And it silences us further. Yet, on the other end of the spectrum, we get people who pop up in culture, like David Bowie. Somebody that decided to dress with a big, you know, gold circle on his head and huge big circular trousers or orange mohawk. Nobody else was doing that. And he at that time thought, I don't care. I'm going to do the one thing that nobody else is doing. And he was celebrated. What the hell's going on there?

• 41:38Speaker 01

  This is, actually, these are related in ways that are really important. It's why we literally gravitate toward authenticity.

• 41:45Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  It is so attractive because we're just like, I wish I could do that. I wish I dared to do that. You don't even want to be him. You want to be like him.

• 41:55Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  You want to be around him. Because there's just something magnetic about people who are like, again, you're not an asshole. It's not like, it's not being contrary just to be contrary.

• 42:06Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  Like, it's just like, he's doing his thing. And he clearly likes it. He's not doing it for you, right? And there's something so attractive about that.

• 42:15Fearne Cotton?

  So attractive about it. They're my favorite people.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  Yes, because.

• 42:17Fearne Cotton?

  Your Tilda Swinton's, your David Bowie's, like, I want, I want that.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  Just like, um, you know, I love sports and like, we see peak human achievement and you're in awe. We're in awe of people who live authentically.

• 42:30Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  Because it's hard and we really want that deep down. And yet, like, how quickly we're just like, but I don't, I don't wanna, that's too costly to me. I can't, like, I wanna belong, I don't wanna, like, I'll accept the fitting in.

• 42:45Fearne Cotton?

  Is authenticity always hard?

• 42:47Speaker 01

  It's not once it becomes habit. Think about everything. It's like, when you change any behavior, it's hard at first.

• 42:52Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  Right, just not because what you're going to is wrong or this, it's just because your brain is just trying to be efficient.

• 42:59Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  Right, and it's like, well, wait, this has worked for us so far. And you're like, yeah, but I'm not happy. And again, remember, your brain doesn't care. Your brain's like, we're still alive, what's the problem? Right, and you're like, but I'd like to be more, right? I'd like to grow, I'd like to have a purpose, I'd like to have good relationships. All of those things, all the stuff that makes for a good life, in one form or another, requires higher levels of authenticity. And what's so interesting is, like, if you take the relationships, the best relationships in research are ones based on authenticity and the promotion of that. It's just a fact. The best kind of groups are ones that engender real belonging.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  If you're a part of something, you're like, like, that's like your ride or die group, where you're just like, it doesn't matter.

• 43:45Fearne Cotton?

  And that doesn't mean your ride or die group isn't a group of people that, oh, we all agree.

• 43:51Speaker 01

  No.

• 43:51Fearne Cotton?

  Because I think that's the fundamental difference. Uh, you know, I, how honest can I be? But there's people that I know.

• 43:58Speaker 01

  Not that honest.

• 43:58Fearne Cotton?

  And exactly, exactly, well, in this conversation, but if, you can't trick me with that one, there's cameras. But if they're, like, I know people and they're in a group and it's like, oh, they're my people. We all are like, like, we all agree and it's like, is that, is that it? Because if I think about one of my best mates. There's tons of issues we don't agree on, but we can chat about them, not even in an argumentative sense. But I know that we fundamentally disagree on certain issues, but I love the bones of this person and they love me. And we can rub along together just fine.

• 44:31Speaker 01

  So one of the, I think, most interesting things in the research on this, that it just isn't intuitive until you say it out loud. So we like to think that we want everyone to agree with us. Now, look, nothing wrong with that. When people agree with you, that feels good.

• 44:46Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  It turns out that's not really the primary motivation. It's actually that you want to be understood. And that's the difference. If you think about the person, you're like, I know we disagree on these, but I love them to death.

• 44:58Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  I would almost guarantee you, without knowing anything about that person, that he listens. We'll actually be like, okay, like, I don't agree, but I know where you're coming from.

• 45:07Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  And it's like, it turns out that's what we're after, because to not be understood is one of the worst things, right? It's like, you can't even order your life. It's like, wait, am I crazy? Or like?

• 45:17Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, you start to feel like you're losing your mind.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  So, so you need some social comparison, be like, am I in reality here? And so, like, the ability to be understood is the real foundational thing. Now, if someone agrees with you, that means they understand you.

• 45:31Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 45:32Speaker 01

  So we just, we conflate those, though. So when you realize, okay, rather than just say, you know what, like, I want the relationship, so I'm gonna agree, I'm gonna imitate, I'm gonna be you, basically. I'm gonna change my opinions, realize you didn't have to go that far to get that, and they don't need that from you. But that active listening, that willingness to be like, no, I, I care enough about you to actually want to know you.

• 45:54Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  And like, wow, I don't, you're, tell me where, you know, interesting, you, you believe X. That's not where I'm at, but I'd love to know, like, where did that come from? Like, what led you? It's like, oh, okay, like, let's take something like, in the States, where everybody always argue for, like, abortion. It's like, listen, reasonable people can agree, it's like, but we've gotten to the place where it's like, on one side, you're a baby killer, the other side, you hate women.

• 46:15Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  And you're like, yeah, there are people like that, but most people, it's way more complicated.

• 46:20Fearne Cotton?

  Of course.

• 46:21Speaker 01

  Right? And so it's like, ask about, like, how'd you arrive at that? And you're like, oh, wow. Nine times out of ten, you'd be like, oh, wow, okay, so if I had that experience, so now the empathy.

• 46:31Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 46:31Speaker 01

  If I had that experience, I could see how you could arrive at that position.

• 46:34Fearne Cotton?

  Well, this is the thing. I think in today's society, we feel we have to have an opinion on everything. And there are many issues where I put my hand up and go, I don't know enough, or I don't have that personal experience. And I could probably spend a day looking at many different, you know, articles or case studies and go, oh, I could probably work out with my set of values and experience what I believe. But a lot of the time, we just think, I must have an opinion. And actually, you say in the book, one of the best things you can do is just say, I don't know about that. Or get curious about it.

• 47:04Speaker 01

  That's the beautiful thing is, first of all, it's okay to not have an opinion.

• 47:07Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  But but notice how when when I want to manufacture consent, when I want you to fall for the collective illusion to control you, the best thing I do is make it moral. So it's not that you're wrong, you're bad. If you don't agree with me, right?

• 47:22Fearne Cotton?

  Like uninformed now is like, you're the devil.

• 47:25Speaker 01

  Yes. And so it's like, we, but it's very persuasive to be like, so what do you mean? You don't know. You don't know about this latest thing that's the most important thing to me that I only knew about for a week. Right? And now I'm out here marching.

• 47:39Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  How dare you?

• 47:40Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  Like, and you're like, wow. Okay. So now, and then next week it'll be another thing.

• 47:44Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  But what you brought up is like, the nice thing is, is it turns out that number one, if it's a great way to detect collective illusions. You know what? I actually, I don't know enough yet. Tell me more. Like, so interesting. You're so excited. You said, everybody knows we're voting for this person. Oh, interesting. I haven't made up my mind yet.

• 48:06Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  What do you like about them? And what's funny is, is if it's an illusion, if they're just copying, they'll do something like, look, everybody knows. Everybody knows. Like, it's like, no, no, why are you?

• 48:17Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  So that why is such a valuable tool.

• 48:20Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 48:20Speaker 01

  You're like, okay, they don't really know. They're just going along.

• 48:24Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, a good litmus test. And also it means you don't have to be full courageous in going, well, I don't agree with you or outing somebody. You're using curiosity to diffuse it, which is so interesting.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  It's, that's the best thing. And so the nice thing is from the social psychology research is, you don't get punished for not having an opinion by the group. In fact, groups will start to try to persuade you. So it's a good way to know. It's like, oh, wow. Okay, hold on. So I'm like, no, tell me, tell me, tell me more about this because I don't really know enough yet. Oh, if it's their real views, they get excited. They wanna share.

• 48:56Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 48:57Speaker 01

  And you're like, oh, and by the way, you'd be like, wow, thanks. That's actually persuasive. I actually agree with you.

• 49:02Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  So you're learning and then you can say, okay, so now at least I know this is really what you think. Cause you're giving me plenty of explanations, justifications. Cool, I'm learning. But if you say, look, I'm just not sure yet. I don't know, or I don't know enough. It's such a good escape valve for other people.

• 49:19Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 49:20Speaker 01

  So like, oh, we can say that.

• 49:21Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I haven't been in my mind either. This is interesting.

• 49:23Fearne Cotton?

  Exactly.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  And you'll see it spread and you're like, okay.

• 49:26Fearne Cotton?

  This is the best thing about the counter to collective illusions is one of the most beautifully powerful things ever, which I've definitely been the receiving end of. I certainly try and be actiony in terms of this too. Where there's a situation that no one's talking about. Or, I don't know, none of us like being embarrassed or having a secret fear in our heads. If there's one person brave enough to go, oh God, I really fucked up and I did this. Or, oh God, well, this thing happened to me, or I've got this health issue. Or something that you're nervous about because on a social level, it's not acceptable. Or nobody talks about it. It takes one person in your group, or if it's on a big platform to say,

• 50:10Fearne Cotton?

  I've done this, I've, you know, I've got this regret, for everybody else to go, oh, and just to sigh.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  Like, yeah.

• 50:18Fearne Cotton?

  Because we look around and we just assume, oh, everybody else is perfect. They're nailing life and they've got no issues. They've never made a mistake before. Oh, shiny celebrities. They've never gone wrong. And actually, every single person has got secret worries and fears.

• 50:32Speaker 01

  They're just humans.

• 50:32Fearne Cotton?

  They're just humans. And it is the most powerful, incredible moment to just have that dismantled immediately. So the dismantling of collective illusions is beautiful.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  It is. And it happens so fast because they're social lies.

• 50:49Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  Right? So it's not that we have to change someone's mind. It's that you reveal for them that what they believe is what we believe.

• 50:58Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 50:58Speaker 01

  And so it's like, and it only happens through social proof.

• 51:01Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  It's just, and it's people I admire. So you said, when, you know, the David Bowie, you're like, oh, okay. You know, and I want to go back though, your point about how like, when one person breaks with something. So if I'm trying to control a group under a collective illusion, that first person to go against it has to be punished. And it's not even about them. It's the head on a pike phenomenon.

• 51:24Fearne Cotton?

  Right.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  So now it's a warning to you. This will happen to you. And we're like, holy cow.

• 51:30Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  Okay, don't. So it's like, it's, but it all, so it really just takes one person to start the cascade. If you want to break this, but it's what happens immediately next. Do you come to the defense of the one person? Right? Once it's two, it's over.

• 51:46Fearne Cotton?

  Wow. It's literally two and it's done.

• 51:48Speaker 01

  And it's done because, because now it's a group. Now I can join a group.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  You know, it's not just one. So one person can start to break it. And the more, like you're David Bowie, now that that's got pros and cons, right? One, it's cool. I'm like, and you kind of like, it's admirable. I wish I were like him. He's also up here. Do you know what I mean? There's a bit of like, right. And if I was famous and I had a lot of money, then I could probably too, but I'm not.

• 52:16Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 52:17Speaker 01

  Right. And I have to worry about what people think because I have this job and I have, so it's like, that goes, they can show us a way. But it's not as powerful social proof as people like me.

• 52:28Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 52:28Speaker 01

  And this is important because it means that each one of us has way more power to shatter illusions than we ever imagined.

• 52:35Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 52:36Speaker 01

  Because you having that courage to just be authentic, like again, doesn't mean you're right.

• 52:42Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 52:42Speaker 01

  But with respect, with love, wanting to be understood and wanting to understand. You're like, look, I, I care enough about you to tell you the truth about how I feel.

• 52:51Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 52:52Speaker 01

  Like, I respect you that much. The amount of ripple effect that that has under illusions is unbelievable.

• 53:00Fearne Cotton?

  Unbelievable. Even if you look at how the landscape in the mental health sector and how that's permeated into everyday conversation, whereas, you know, 20 years ago, very few people would talk openly about their own mental health struggles. If I look at my nan, for instance, who Was in a day psych ward a lot and it was all, you know, nobody really talked about it in the family and I only really found out about that when I spoke to my mum, actually, in this setting. And I started to really unpick her mental health or whatever. But it was, you know, a subject shrouded in shame and nobody would discuss it. And you'd see that in, in terms of, you know, popular culture and how we talked about it in the workplace, that if

• 53:41Fearne Cotton?

  you had anything, you know, with your brain going on, it was just, we don't talk about it. And now you see, you know, so, so when I was working at BBC Radio One, nobody talked about mental health and I was really struggling at the time. But I didn't feel like there was any space to say, I, I feel like I've lost my marbles. I am absolutely disconnected from my body. I don't know what's going on. Whereas now, I think if you were struggling there, you could say to somebody without any judgment or just any commentary other than let's get you help. That has changed massively. And even if we look at like, smoking back in the day, I just smoked because everyone else smoked. It was so normal. You go into a pub, it's the smokiest atmosphere ever and I'll just have a Marlboro Light, lovely.

• 54:24Fearne Cotton?

  Now it's like, oh my God, someone's smoking. What are they doing? You know, things change.

• 54:29Speaker 01

  The mental health one is such a good example. So, we have data in the States, as, you know, again, most of our data is. So this is one of those where the collective illusion now has gone the other way. It used to be like, so when we ask people who have suffered a mental health issue in the last five years, for a long time, people would say privately, yes, and then publicly, no. Good. And, and it would be like, twice or three times as many in private than we're willing to say, right? Because you just don't say it. It's shameful. That has changed. So with, with Gen Z, the pressure is actually to say you've had a mental health episode. So their public report of it is higher, it's still high in private, right? But it's now going the other way. Which is kind of how, how it course corrects.

• 55:12Fearne Cotton?

  Right, right, right.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  So they're seeing it's almost kind of cool to, to admit that you've struggled.

• 55:17Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 55:17Speaker 01

  Which is kind of funny, right?

• 55:19Fearne Cotton?

  The suffering Olympics.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  So yeah, it's like now, it's like, okay, so let's dial that back just a little, right?

• 55:23Fearne Cotton?

  And then we'll be in the middle somewhere.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  We don't need to compete for the most, yeah. But, but so to your point.

• 55:28Fearne Cotton?

  How interesting.

• 55:28Speaker 01

  They can change. And it did take like brave people being the first to say like, no, it's fine. Right. And usually those are people with high social status.

• 55:38Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  That that can sort of

• 55:40Fearne Cotton?

  Can kickstart it.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  Can kickstart it. But until it's like, oh, but like my neighbor too, right?

• 55:45Fearne Cotton?

  That's when it's

• 55:46Speaker 01

  That's like me.

• 55:47Fearne Cotton?

  Doable.

• 55:47Speaker 01

  They live in the same circumstances. They've got the same struggles and they're talking about it.

• 55:52Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 55:53Speaker 01

  It's okay to talk about it.

• 55:53Fearne Cotton?

  I think there's something really liberating about knowing that these collectives can can change over time. And, you know, I remember like back in the day, just everybody would go to the supermarket and you'd take your shopping home in a plastic bag. And no one batted an eyelid. You wouldn't think there was anything bad about it. We didn't know, we were uninformed. And then over the years, as you're

• 56:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:14Fearne Cotton?

  You gather education, you go, oh, God, these plastic bags end up in the sea and then animals could end up swimming in them. This is not good. And then systems change and paper bags are bought in. And now we look back and think, oh, my God, how many plastic bags did I put in the ocean myself?

• 56:28Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 56:28Fearne Cotton?

  And you feel a gasp about it. I think it's really liberating to know that these things can change. So if you feel like your values aren't aligning with the norm currently, in a hundred years' time, sadly we'll be dead. But in the future, that won't be the case. And I think it's really important to know that these things change and move.

• 56:46Speaker 01

  Yes. And so they change even when they're true, right? So when you're like, I don't like this particular norm. I don't like how we do this. And that is true. Those can still change. That's good. This is even crazier, right? They might not even believe this anyway.

• 57:02Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  So so like, it can change now.

• 57:04Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 57:05Speaker 01

  The the rate of change under collective illusions historically is like shocking. How fast whole societies change when the spell is broken.

• 57:13Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 57:14Speaker 01

  It's like in in the States, the marriage equality movement, such a good example.

• 57:18Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 57:19Speaker 01

  And from two thousand and three to two thousand and seventeen, fastest change in public opinion ever recorded.

• 57:24Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  It went from thirty percent approval publicly of gay marriage to seventy percent.

• 57:30Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 57:31Speaker 01

  And the trick was is that it's because back in two thousand and three, so there was a community, I believe in Chicago, I probably might get that part wrong. The geography of like academics and activists to like, okay, how do we advance gay rights? And they're like, whatever you do, don't push for marriage because the public's not ready for it. Turned out it wasn't true. So there was private opinion data that showed there was a slim majority of, I'd call like the love is love crowd and libertarians who are like, I don't care what you do. You know, like, it's none of my business.

• 57:58Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 57:58Speaker 01

  So a small group of activists realized, oh, this is a collective illusion. It's not, we could win here.

• 58:06Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  But so rather than try to persuade everyone, oh, you should care, you should want people to get married. They went to Hollywood and they started using our culture to actually break the illusion.

• 58:15Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 58:16Speaker 01

  And it's so powerful.

• 58:17Fearne Cotton?

  How incredible.

• 58:18Speaker 01

  So, so you combine like Will and Grace, you know, Modern Family did this really well. And it's not in your face. It's just.

• 58:25Fearne Cotton?

  It's normalized.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  And so there's a funny thing about, um, so when you think about social proof, it's people I admire, people like me, so we have a role to play. And then cultural artifacts. Because just like we could take old civilizations that are long gone and reverse engineer their values from the artifacts they left behind. Our brains use this now to read what do we believe? The stories we tell ourselves, the movies, the music, the TV shows.

• 58:53Fearne Cotton?

  Has so much impact on us.

• 58:54Speaker 01

  So much impact. And it's the technical term for it is like, we have parasocial relationships.

• 58:59Fearne Cotton?

  Right.

• 58:59Speaker 01

  With celebrities, with fictional characters.

• 59:02Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  It's so crazy. If you take a TV show that you really like, your brain treats those characters as part of your in-group.

• 59:10Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  Even though you know that they're fake.

• 59:12Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, my God.

• 59:13Speaker 01

  So things that are said in that context have an outsized effect on what you believe your group believes. So we've done this work. Um, so we have these partnerships in Hollywood where we give private opinions. Like, look, like, we deserve to know each other and we deserve a transparent culture. So we'll give you the private opinion on things and just put it into the shows.

• 59:34Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 59:35Speaker 01

  And so I'll give you an example. Um, so one of the biggest illusions we've ever found, which is kind of crazy, is how people define a successful life. It is wild. So we've looked at dozens and dozens of trade-off priorities you could. So be like the richest person you know to having a family, everything in between. In private, the kind of lives people want to live is pretty remarkable.

• 59:56Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 59:56Speaker 01

  They're really good people.

• 59:58Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 59:58Speaker 01

  Like they want to contribute, they want to be in relationship, they want to have character. It's like, you're like, oh, these are people I'd want to live around. Then when you ask them, well, what do you think most people think? They think everybody else cares about status and that's it.

• 1:00:11Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  With fame being like the number one thing.

• 1:00:13Fearne Cotton?

  So privately, we're all actually really the same.

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  Oh, it's remarkable.

• 1:00:16Fearne Cotton?

  But we assume that everybody else is like.

• 1:00:18Speaker 01

  So, so it's in private, overwhelming majority of people think success is positive sum. Like your win can be, can benefit me.

• 1:00:25Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:25Speaker 01

  It doesn't, just because you won doesn't mean I have to lose.

• 1:00:27Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, exactly.

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  But we think everybody else thinks it's zero sum.

• 1:00:30Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  It's crazy. And we think everybody else wants to be famous as the number one thing, wants wealth and power, wants to go to the most prestigious universities. So it's all this comparative zero sum stuff.

• 1:00:42Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:42Speaker 01

  In private, they're all at the bottom 10%. Okay. So now imagine this, nothing's more important than living the kind of life you want to live. Like societies thrive when most people are getting to do that. And it doesn't matter what else you do, if people are miserable, right? You get the kind of situation we see all over the world right now. So how sad is it that, look, I want to live a good life, I want to be successful, but I also want you to think I'm successful. Why, there's nothing wrong with wanting people to acknowledge your accomplishments. But if I think that you only see success as fame, I can make choices that optimize on getting your approval.

• 1:01:22Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, that devalue what you actually think.

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  And what we find over and over again is, so we also measure how people are doing on those priorities. And then correlate that with broader life satisfaction. It turns out that if you increase achievement on your priorities, okay. Most, most people are only about 50% of their priorities at best. If you bump that up to 70, which by the way, isn't hard, if I, I want to be in a good relationship, I want to be a good person. I want to literally be in my community is a top 10 priority for people. Yeah, you can do that. You don't be rich or famous to do that. Like you can just show up and do it, right? That bump actually corresponds to an increase in life satisfaction. That's the exact same as getting a 50% pay increase.

• 1:02:06Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  It's that big of a deal. Conversely, no amount of achievement on what other people care about translates to any increase in life satisfaction.

• 1:02:15Fearne Cotton?

  I can imagine. I've interviewed so many people in this exact chair who are top, top, top of their game and they are no happier than like my best mate from school who has a regular job. I see it again and again, like that collective illusion.

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  Isn't it crazy?

• 1:02:29Fearne Cotton?

  I so understand it.

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  And don't you think like, you're like, you should be happy. We look at these people and you're like, how are you not happy?

• 1:02:36Fearne Cotton?

  Because it's a load of old bollocks.

• 1:02:38Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:02:38Fearne Cotton?

  And it's also that, I don't know if you have the same phrase in the States, but we have a thing here, keeping up with the Joneses. So your next door neighbour, you're like, they've got hanging baskets, I better get hanging baskets. They've done a conservatory on the back of the house. I bet, you know, and actually, nobody gives a shit. Like, no,

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  Nobody does. It's so funny.

• 1:02:58Speaker 06

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• 1:03:28Speaker 04

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• 1:04:01Fearne Cotton?

  Hey, there's one thing in the book that I have to ask you about. You say in the book that you see the collective illusion as an existential threat. That's huge to say that. Why do you think that?

• 1:04:12Speaker 01

  Because I'm dramatic.

• 1:04:15Fearne Cotton?

  We like a bit of drama.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  No, here's what I mean by it. So, so far, we've talked about the personal consequences, right? Which are important enough. And if that's all there was, it's enough to say

• 1:04:26Fearne Cotton?

  Correct.

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  You should steer toward authenticity. There's ways to inch toward that without, you know, jumping all the way in.

• 1:04:32Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:32Speaker 01

  But it will pay dividends in a hurry and it's worth it just for that. You'll live a better life.

• 1:04:36Fearne Cotton?

  Yep.

• 1:04:36Speaker 01

  I promise. Now, let's think about collectively. So, one of the biggest consequences of these collective illusions is the plummeting of social trust. And social trust might be the single most important thing for the cohesion of any society that we've ever discovered. And all that is, is my gut feeling whether most people can be trusted. And you think about that, if I don't think most people around me are trustworthy.

• 1:05:01Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  What does that do for how I treat them, how I expect to be treated?

• 1:05:06Fearne Cotton?

  It's Lord of the Flies.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  Yes, and so therefore I'm like, okay, if I can't trust you, then I have to control you.

• 1:05:12Speaker 01

  And then it becomes a race of who gets to control whom. Because, and it'd become hyper paternalistic because it's just like for your own good. Or no, if I let you make choices, you're going to hurt me. So here's what's crazy. So we've seen across Western society, the plummeting of social trust. In the US, we have the lowest levels ever recorded. It's, it's, it's been in steady decline since the 30s. It's crazy. If you look at like Scandinavian countries, other places have higher levels of social trust. When you get above like 50%, so a majority of people think a majority of people can be trusted.

• 1:05:43Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 1:05:44Speaker 01

  So many things get easier.

• 1:05:46Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:46Speaker 01

  Right? We don't have to be the same in every way. If I trust you, it's okay that you have a different opinion. But if I don't trust you, then all I have left is, well, we better agree. And people that don't agree are enemy because they're going to hurt us. Right? So the single best predictor of social trust is perceived shared values.

• 1:06:06Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  Okay. So if I told you in private, most people share pretty fundamental values. It's pretty, pretty shocking how similar we are. But these values now sit under collective illusions. So we don't think it's true. Well, if you don't think it's true, it becomes not true.

• 1:06:22Fearne Cotton?

  Yep.

• 1:06:22Speaker 01

  Right. So now I'm looking around going, wait, just to take the success one. If you actually think that most people around you are this like zero sum, hyper comparative, they will step on you to get ahead. Why would you trust them?

• 1:06:37Fearne Cotton?

  No, and also you'd start to mimic their behavior because you're like, sod it.

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  You have to.

• 1:06:40Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:41Speaker 01

  Like if.

• 1:06:41Fearne Cotton?

  To survive.

• 1:06:42Speaker 01

  If, if, in fact, behavioral economics is pretty clear on this. Like in a positive sum game, if other people are playing it as zero sum, you have to play it as zero sum. You'll get taken advantage of. So now I have to behave this way because I think that's the only way I can get ahead.

• 1:06:56Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:57Speaker 01

  But now I'm behaving that way. And that's proof to you that I believe that. So now you feel like you have to do that too.

• 1:07:02Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  And we all literally just keep perpetuating the lie. And so the nice thing is, is what we see is when people start being a little more authentic and we start revealing shared values. But what you see instantly is the boost in social trust.

• 1:07:18Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:19Speaker 01

  And once that starts to come up, we don't have to agree on everything anymore. We start cooperating a little bit better and the flywheel works in favor of us. So if I could wave a magic wand, like social trust, moving that needle is the most important thing you can do in a society.

• 1:07:34Fearne Cotton?

  Is that what you mean by in the book you say, you know, if we, if we look around the world at the moment, we could literally go on any news outlet and think we are in dire straits. The world is bleak. You say the answers are hiding in plain sight. Is this what you mean?

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, it is. Look, it's, and what's funny is, is, I mean, obviously from a media perspective, there is some incentive, whether they mean to or not. We have negativity bias.

• 1:07:59Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:59Speaker 01

  Like outrage sells. So like, we're getting fed things that, that don't necessarily reflect reality. There are, there are narrative around it. But it's like, yeah, there, it's beyond traditional media. The social media stuff is just a disaster for this. Like, it doesn't matter if there's any manipulation, you are gonna be under collective illusions just being on social media because of the loudest voices.

• 1:08:21Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:22Speaker 01

  But you add to that. So my organization, we work with other organizations and government agencies, looking at the weaponization of collective illusions. So other countries, so in particular, Russia, China, and Iran, figured this out and were so clever. So they have million bot armies, millions and millions of fake accounts, and now they're AI-enabled. And the whole point is to manufacture collective illusions, to get you to believe that your group believes something they don't.

• 1:08:53Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  And so it's so, it's so sophisticated. It's kind of shocking.

• 1:08:59Fearne Cotton?

  Propaganda is now so easy to cultivate.

• 1:09:01Speaker 01

  And we tend to think propaganda, we're like, oh, it's disinformation. It's not. Disinformation is not terribly effective. It's, I'm going to convince you that your group believes something that it doesn't. And then your conformity bias will kick in, and you'll be out there protesting something you don't even understand, and certainly didn't believe, but you're pretty sure that's what we believe.

• 1:09:21Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:22Speaker 01

  And so it's very easy. So like, for example, the research shows that on social media, if only 5% of your interactions are with bots, the bots can completely determine group consensus. Okay. Conservatively, one quarter of all your interactions on social media are with bots, and you don't know it.

• 1:09:41Fearne Cotton?

  That is shit scary.

• 1:09:43Speaker 01

  It's, and they're so good. So they'll swarm an opinion and boost a fringe opinion. That's the first thing they do. Right? So one crazy person has some stupid idea, right? We should defund the police. You're like, I think we should reform it, but I don't want social workers show it up. I, I, sometimes I need the police, right? This seems crazy.

• 1:10:01Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  They'll repost it, retweet it, so it feels like, it'll feel like it's viral and like, wow, I'm seeing this on my feed a lot. Second thing they do with the bots is, the first three comments on a comment thread, control the entire comment thread.

• 1:10:16Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 1:10:16Speaker 01

  So you post something, or you, you like something. Those bots, if they want to encourage it. We'll come in and immediately reinforce it in the comment section. And if the first three are positive, that'll determine the tone of the whole comment thread.

• 1:10:32Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 1:10:33Speaker 01

  And you'll feel like, oh, you know what? I saw that. I was like, hey, this is what we believe. I posted this.

• 1:10:39Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:39Speaker 01

  And look, people are saying I'm really smart and courageous and wonderful. Or you posted the wrong thing, they'll attack you in the comment thread. They're bots.

• 1:10:48Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  They're not real human beings.

• 1:10:50Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 1:10:50Speaker 01

  It's wild. So this is what I mean when I say it's an existential crisis, right? We're losing a war we didn't know we were fighting. And there's no real policy solution. There's no technology solution. It's a human problem.

• 1:11:06Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:06Speaker 01

  And so I would say whether it's for your own sake, authenticity matters.

• 1:11:12Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:13Speaker 01

  Or if all you cared about is being part of the group, this might be the most important thing you could do for the groups that matter to you.

• 1:11:21Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:22Speaker 01

  Because we are suffocating under these social lies. And it's tearing apart societies and we don't function. And it does, it feels like all over the world, the wheels just fell off.

• 1:11:35Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, it does.

• 1:11:36Speaker 01

  And so I would say we have real problems. But when you get under the hood, past just what people will say out loud, you would be heart warmed to know we haven't lost our humanity. We just think we have.

• 1:11:51Fearne Cotton?

  That is the most beautiful thing to realize. Cause I think most people wake up in the morning and feel dreaded looking at the news, do feel distrusting and do assume that mainly because of what you've just said there about the bots and there's no governance over how social media works and how we're bombarded with information, stories, narratives, if you're wrong, you're right, whatever. That there is, the humanness has been extracted via AI. But if we take back control and we actually do believe that people are good eggs, the majority of people, there's always going to be a few sour grapes over here. But there's, the majority of people are good eggs. That gives us hope and that is so necessary in this conversation.

• 1:12:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, because then why would you do anything?

• 1:12:32Fearne Cotton?

  You wouldn't get out of bed.

• 1:12:33Speaker 01

  And if you knew that the most important thing you could do, if you said like, how do I contribute to getting us through this, right? Who am I, right? It turns out because it's a collective illusion and social proof is everything, you are really important. And so for your own sake, but also for our sake, have a conversation like not, not online, like in real life with your neighbor at a pub, a respectful one. And but, but be honest with yourself. Like, I'm pretty sure that they don't agree. And then you have to actually go, huh. And what's funny is, is I like to, to write down like, what am I afraid of here? What do I think? Right? Like, so I, because it's so easy to revise

• 1:13:18Speaker 01

  your views after you've had the conversation. Oh yeah, I never thought that. I mean, oh yeah, no, Roger, of course Roger agrees. So no, you didn't think that. You didn't think that. Um, and you're just like, holy cow, I'm just wrong. And again, what's awesome is go back to David Bowie. Be that person. It's so wildly fucking attractive.

• 1:13:38Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 1:13:38Speaker 01

  Like, and again, it's not an in your face rude, don't be an asshole.

• 1:13:44Fearne Cotton?

  Nope.

• 1:13:45Speaker 01

  But there's just something so attractive about people who just are who they are.

• 1:13:50Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. It's the best.

• 1:13:52Speaker 01

  It is, it is. And it's like, it's like, we're so afraid of that awkward moment. And I love that you brought that. It's just like, it feels like the worst thing in the world. It's just an awkward moment.

• 1:14:02Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, you'll get over it.

• 1:14:03Speaker 01

  If you can get through it.

• 1:14:03Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 1:14:04Speaker 01

  And the other side of that is this phenomenal experience of like, hold on, I just showed you a part of who I am and you kind of liked it.

• 1:14:13Fearne Cotton?

  You didn't leave. You didn't go. I think that's our fear, isn't it? I've had that so many times with friends, people that I love dearly, that I thought I could never tell them this one thing. And then I've tested myself and thought, let me have a conversation about this, like something in my past or whatever. And they've stayed and you're like, what? Oh my God. I'm okay. Like, I'm all right.

• 1:14:35Speaker 01

  You, you, yeah. Think about how you feel about yourself.

• 1:14:38Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:38Speaker 01

  For that, you know, it reminds me, um, you know, my younger brother. So I grew up in rural America in a pretty conservative religious community, which is not sort of my way of life now.

• 1:14:50Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:50Speaker 01

  But, um, quite a while back, my younger brother came out as gay, which that was, that was, that was before that big change I talked about.

• 1:14:58Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:59Speaker 01

  And I remember he, he said something to me that I think has more general applicability is, you know, when he was struggling with, tell our parents. And he had talked to me and he said, but look, I said, they love you. And he goes, yeah, they wouldn't if they knew me. And so you're living in this lie in this extreme way, denying some fundamental part of who you are. I mean, that's an extreme case, right? So that's really sad. And in that case, there were reasons to be worried because there were plenty of people in his friend group whose parents disowned their kids.

• 1:15:33Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:33Speaker 01

  So that is horrible.

• 1:15:34Fearne Cotton?

  It's a very real threat.

• 1:15:35Speaker 01

  So it's a real threat. But the other side of that is the incredible when they accept you. And not only that, they changed their view of their religion.

• 1:15:45Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 1:15:46Speaker 01

  They changed their view, they chose their son.

• 1:15:48Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:49Speaker 01

  And the kind of relationship that they still have and that we all have. And what it must feel like to be like, I just showed you who I am and you didn't leave.

• 1:15:57Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:58Speaker 01

  And, and so that, again, that's an extreme version, but we all live some

• 1:16:02Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, without doubt.

• 1:16:03Speaker 01

  smaller version of that.

• 1:16:04Fearne Cotton?

  Without doubt.

• 1:16:05Speaker 01

  And we think it's, we think the small ones don't matter, but they do.

• 1:16:08Fearne Cotton?

  They do.

• 1:16:08Speaker 01

  They do. It doesn't have to be the big things.

• 1:16:10Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 1:16:10Speaker 01

  It's like when I feel like I have to hide parts of who I am that I value, just so you won't leave or just so you'll like me. We get the empty calorie fitting in.

• 1:16:21Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:21Speaker 01

  And we deserve more than that.

• 1:16:23Fearne Cotton?

  I think it's, it's the most interesting topic in terms of belonging versus fitting in on a very individual basis, how much tension we store in our body. And then when we look at a bigger, this on a bigger scale, collectives, groups we fit into, how we feel we fit into society, how we view the world. It's just, it's a never ending topic and we've, you know, barely done the tip of the iceberg with this one. So I would say to anybody who wants to know more, read your brilliant book, look up what you're researching and the studies that you're doing. Because I think, you know, as well as it being an existential threat,

• 1:17:02Fearne Cotton?

  it's just something that's so relieving in terms of knowing you can be who you want to be in the world. And to fear rejection less, because actually it's much less of a threat.

• 1:17:13Speaker 01

  Much less of a threat.

• 1:17:14Fearne Cotton?

  That we actually believe.

• 1:17:15Speaker 01

  And if, I would just charge everyone, like, do one authentic thing. It doesn't have to be scary. It doesn't have to be the biggest thing. Try it.

• 1:17:23Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  Try it because here's the thing, we're afraid of not belonging. But also what we see all over the world right now is people feel like they have no control. And that's terrifying.

• 1:17:33Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:34Speaker 01

  You know, remember during COVID, everybody bought toilet paper like crazy. That was in part because it was a thing we could do.

• 1:17:40Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:41Speaker 01

  It wasn't expensive. It felt like there was something we could do. And there's a psychologically quite good to feel like I'm doing something even if it really didn't matter. Right? Just we literally had a run on toilet paper in the States.

• 1:17:53Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:53Speaker 01

  It's so funny. If we just had bidets, we'd be fine, but we don't.

• 1:17:56Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't even have those here. That's very a Europe thing, yeah.

• 1:17:59Speaker 01

  Very, very. But I think that you'll experience something even more profound, which is the sense of control over your life that you feel with those small acts of authenticity. You'll realize that you you can be in charge of your life.

• 1:18:16Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:17Speaker 01

  It will improve your relationships. And because of the collective illusions, it might be the single most important thing you could do for society.

• 1:18:26Fearne Cotton?

  It's so fascinating. And in the last, you know, over eight years of us doing this podcast, we really haven't dived deeply into this subject matter that seems to be pretty much a foundation for so many other things that we talk about, mental health wise or life narrative wise. So I can't thank you enough for being on the podcast today. Before we wrap up, there are two things I want to ask you.

• 1:18:47Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:18:48Fearne Cotton?

  We're creating a Happy Place playlist of really feel good music. What would you put on there? The true private answer, Todd.

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  So this will date me?

• 1:19:00Speaker 01

  Right now, I think I'm too into like broader stuff that I wouldn't fit the list you have, like White Lies, I really love.

• 1:19:09Speaker 01

  Mona is an obscure band. But throughout when I was younger, it was Journey, Don't Stop Believin'.

• 1:19:15Fearne Cotton?

  What a tune. We're putting it on there.

• 1:19:18Speaker 01

  It's just so good.

• 1:19:19Fearne Cotton?

  That's not on there yet.

• 1:19:20Speaker 01

  And it's so like, it's kind of, geez, like, yeah, duh. It's hap- but it's, it's actually a beautiful, first of all, it's just great music.

• 1:19:27Fearne Cotton?

  It's great. It's motivating.

• 1:19:29Speaker 01

  It's so motivating. And it was like, the origins of that were really about them trying to stick with being an artist.

• 1:19:35Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:35Speaker 01

  When it was hard and everyone said to quit.

• 1:19:38Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:39Speaker 01

  And the journey from obscurity to doing the thing you love and being able to make a living out of it. And, you know, in my own life, just thinking about the, the challenges I faced. I used to literally, this is again, dating myself, we had this, my dad had this eight-track. And it was in the garage and we had Journey.

• 1:19:57Fearne Cotton?

  I love it.

• 1:19:58Speaker 01

  And I would go play it in this and just.

• 1:19:59Fearne Cotton?

  Heaven.

• 1:20:00Speaker 01

  Just loved it.

• 1:20:01Fearne Cotton?

  It's the best. I love it. I'm here for that. And where is your happy place?

• 1:20:06Speaker 01

  Okay, this will make me sound like an asshole.

• 1:20:10Fearne Cotton?

  Go on.

• 1:20:13Speaker 01

  It is every chance I get to drive my Porsche 911.

• 1:20:17Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, we're, we're letting you have that.

• 1:20:19Speaker 01

  It's, I, I, it's a convertible.

• 1:20:22Fearne Cotton?

  Windows down.

• 1:20:23Speaker 01

  Windows down.

• 1:20:23Fearne Cotton?

  Roof off, Journey playing.

• 1:20:25Speaker 01

  It is so great because it's fast, it's nimble. I'll go, I'll go up, I have a, when I just want, I'm like, you know what, I just need to clear my head. I want to feel happy again.

• 1:20:37Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:38Speaker 01

  There's a little path I take outside of Boston, drives around Walden Pond, this twisty, woodsy road.

• 1:20:46Fearne Cotton?

  I love that.

• 1:20:46Speaker 01

  You got the music player and that's it.

• 1:20:49Fearne Cotton?

  Who cares if anyone thinks you're an asshole? You're being authentically you, Todd.

• 1:20:52Speaker 01

  That's authentically me.

• 1:20:52Fearne Cotton?

  And that's what it's all about.

• 1:20:54Speaker 01

  I'm that guy.

• 1:20:55Fearne Cotton?

  Well, look, thank you so much for your time today. It's fascinating conversation that I will undoubtedly, it will be just whizzing around my brain for days to come in terms of looking at decisions that I'm making and the actions that I'm taking. So Todd, thank you so much for being a happy place. Oh my god, I feel like I need to do a podcast after that podcast just to work out what the hell's going on in that podcast. We need like a, you know when like Britain's Got Talent's got a behind the scenes show or something, or X Factor? I need like a behind the scenes of that chat. There is so much in there. I mean, one episode does not do that topic justice. So read the book because it's just a fascinating topic. And hopefully

• 1:21:37Fearne Cotton?

  you'll go away and think about those themes more, maybe chat to friends and family. I think this conversation could maybe also be a good bridge between you or me and somebody else that we know thinks vastly different to us. Or we assume they think in a really different way to us. This, this conversation, this podcast could be a good thing to send to someone who you know just totally disagrees with your beliefs about the world, or not even the world, just like your own life. Todd, you're brilliant. Thank you so much. A joy to be hosting Todd on the Happy Place podcast and also having him in the UK. We loved it. Come back soon, Todd. Collective Illusions is the name of the book that we were particularly talking about, but Todd's written loads more that you might like too.

• 1:22:20Fearne Cotton?

  So go check out his back catalogue. In the meantime, a huge thanks to Todd and to you for being here. You're the bloody best.

• 1:22:49Fearne Cotton?

  Happy Place is researched by me, Fern Cotton. The producer is Anushka Tate at Happy Place Studios, with studio engineering by Basil Oxtavie.

• 1:23:00Fearne Cotton?

  Hello, this is Susie Ruffel.

• 1:23:01Speaker 06

  And Maisy Adams.

• 1:23:02Fearne Cotton?

  And together we host Big Kick Energy. Hey Mais, what is it?

• 1:23:05Speaker 06

  Only the best podcast ever.

• 1:23:06Fearne Cotton?

  Yes!

• 1:23:07Speaker 06

  A comedy entertainment podcast with a focus on all things women's football, all things hilarious, all things friendship. It's a laugh is what it is, Ruffel.

• 1:23:17Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, and a fair bit of gossiping too.

• 1:23:19Speaker 06

  Oh, and a lovely bit of gossip. Chow down on the gossip.

• 1:23:21Fearne Cotton?

  Nom, nom, nom, nom, nom. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. Just need to search Big Kick Energy.

• 1:23:27Speaker 06

  Grab a knife and fork and tuck in, baby.