Pod Insights Something You Should Know The Startling Impact of Peer Pressure & Why Shyness Can Be a Plus About this episode Who hasn’t had to wait at a doctor’s office well past the appointment time. It sucks. What is a reasonable amount of time to have to wait? Should you complain to someone? This episode starts with some interesting research that explains what you should do so your doctor knows your time is valuable and you shouldn’t have to wait so long. https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/practices/ppatients-switched-doctors-long-wait-times-vitals
Peer pressure is a powerful force – more powerful than people realize. You are constantly influencing people around you to be more like you, and they are influencing you to be more like them - without even realizing it. When you understand the power of peer pressure it can become a powerful tool. Joining me to discuss all this is Robert Frank, a professor of Management and Economics at Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management and author of the book Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work (https://amzn.to/3L4HPno).
Almost everyone has felt shy. In fact, only 2% of people claim they never feel shy. The rest of us have all been in situations where we have felt shy to some extent. What is shyness? Why are some people more prone to it than others? Can you overcome shyness in situations that really matter? Here with some advice is Lynne Henderson who has worked with shy people to help them overcome that feeling that prevents people from fully engaging in life. By the way, it being shy isn't always a problem to be fixed. Sometimes it can be quite charming! Lynne is the founder of the Social Fitness Center and the founder and co-director of the Shyness Institute. She is also author of The Shyness Workbook (https://amzn.to/3sA1Njp).
Sometimes you just “click” with someone. It can happen in romance, friendship and in business. People just click. What is happening when that happens? Who are you most likely to click with? Listen as we explore the magic of clicking – and hear some ways that will help you become better at clicking. Source: Ori Brafman author of Click (https://amzn.to/3FF1nO0).
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:28 Mike Carruthers? Today on Something You Should Know: What to do when your doctor makes you wait well past the appointment time. Then, Understanding Peer Pressure. It's really interesting how peer pressure can determine how much you and your friends weigh. One of the early studies showed statistically that there was actually a fairly strong link, that if others... When your social network became obese, you are much more likely to become obese yourself. Also, why do you just click with some people but not others? And shyness, why do we feel shy in the first place?
2:06 Speaker 01 It's a fear of negative evaluation that sometimes interferes with your doing what you really want to do. But it's only 2% of the population who say they've never experienced shyness. It's a universal human emotion.
2:21 Mike Carruthers? All this today on Something You Should Know.
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4:09 Speaker 02 Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today. Something you should know. With Mike Carruthers.
4:22 Mike Carruthers? Hi, hey. Here we go with another episode of Something You Should Know. And we're going to start today with one of my pet peeves. And that's when a doctor or a dentist consistently makes you wait well past your appointment time before they see you. Now, I understand things come up and occasionally it happens. But it's when it happens all the time. I don't know. I guess it's because if I made appointments with people and showed up 40 minutes late all the time, that would be a problem. And apparently, I'm not the only one who is bugged by this. According to a survey, one in five patients say they have switched doctors because of long wait times. I would be part of that one in five.
5:08 Mike Carruthers? 30% of patients have left a doctor's appointment because of a long wait. Now, the average wait time is about 20 minutes. And Steven Reimer of the Yale Medical School has studied this problem and says nobody should have to wait more than 20 minutes without a good explanation. And that's the other thing. Anticipated wait is a lot easier to take than not knowing how long you're going to wait. So if it's going to be longer than 20 minutes, someone should tell you. If they don't, you should go to the desk and ask why you have to wait so long. Dr. Reimer says you should also tell the doctor, not just the staff, that this bothers you. People are timid when it comes to criticizing their doctor.
5:51 Mike Carruthers? But it's the doctor who sets the appointment policy. The doctor is responsible for your wait. No other business would survive if customers were kept waiting so long. And doctors need to understand that your time is valuable. And that is something you should know.
6:13 Mike Carruthers? We've all heard the term peer pressure. I'm sure you know what it means. Yet I've come to learn from my guest who you're about to meet that that term is a bit of a misnomer, at least the pressure part. It's not so much pressure when you think of pressuring someone or coercing someone. It's more about modeling behavior. Your behavior that you model influences other people's behavior and your behavior is influenced by other people's behavior. Probably more than you imagine. So how does this all work exactly? What makes it so powerful? And how can we best use peer pressure to get people to change? Well, joining me is Robert Frank.
6:57 Mike Carruthers? He is a professor of management and economics at Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management. He has been a columnist for The New York Times for more than a decade and he is author of the book Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work. Hi, Robert, welcome.
7:16 Speaker 03 Nice to be with you, Mike.
7:17 Mike Carruthers? So everyone's heard of peer pressure. But how do we know it's a real thing? And how do you measure it? And how do we know it works?
7:27 Speaker 03 Oh, it's been studied now intensively. So for example, smoking is a nice illustration. We didn't really regulate smoking until we had studies coming out of Japan showing that exposure to secondhand smoke caused illness in others. We're reluctant to regulate generally. That's probably a good thing on balance. But the excuse we give for regulating is that what you do is going to cause harm to others that's hard for them to avoid. And so the fact that people didn't have any practical way to avoid illnesses caused by secondhand smoke, that was the license that regulators thought they needed to start taxing cigarettes heavily.
8:12 Speaker 03 Uh, passing regulations that you couldn't smoke in restaurants and bars and public buildings and the like. In fact, the damage from secondhand smoke is, uh, I won't say it's trivial, but it's trivial in comparison with the most important damage we cause as smokers, which is to make other people more likely to smoke. The, the studies on that are very clear. Uh, so if the smoking rate, uh, you're worried your daughter's going to smoke, if, if the smoking rate amongst her friends goes from, let's say 20% up to 30%, that's doesn't sound like a big increase, uh, that increase, uh, by itself will make her 25% more likely to either become or remain a smoker.
8:57 Speaker 03 So it's a huge effect. Uh, it's an enormous amount of harm somebody causes when they indirectly cause somebody else to become a smoker. And so that's, that's a far better reason for discouraging people from smoking than the risk they pose to others by, by exposing them to secondhand smoke.
9:18 Mike Carruthers? Well, I remember too, that one of the arguments given for people to give up smoking was that if you have kids and you smoke, they're much more likely to smoke because their parents smoked.
9:29 Speaker 03 That was certainly true in my case. I started smoking at age 14. Uh, I'm thankful that I smoked for only two years, but my parents didn't want me to smoke, but both of them smoked. So it was, it was a, a, a weak soup they served by way of advice to me. Uh, if you think I shouldn't smoke, why do you smoke?
9:49 Mike Carruthers? Because I'm an adult. That's what, that's, that's what I heard anyway.
9:53 Speaker 03 Exactly.
9:54 Mike Carruthers? Yeah. Because I'm an adult. I don't want to spend too much time on the smoking example, but what I find so fascinating is that today, secondhand smoke irritates almost everyone, you know? We don't want to be around cigarette smoke. It smells bad, it's annoying, but it didn't used to be. I mean, people's houses smelled, airplanes were horrible, horribly stuffy with cigarette smoke, and nobody seemed to care. And now, they do.
10:28 Speaker 03 We adapt very quickly to just about anything. There are studies showing that most people say they'd rather be killed in an auto accident than to survive and be a paraplegic. It is devastating to suffer an injury like that, to be sure, but what is surprising to most people is that when paraplegics are studied about a year after their accident, they display a very similar mix of moods and emotions to what they'd experienced before their accidents. They're not happy about having been injured, to be sure, but it's not as big an effect psychologically as people would anticipate.
11:12 Speaker 03 We adapt very quickly to all sorts of circumstances. So if the place smells bad, we adapt quickly to it. Yeah, that's what we do.
11:20 Mike Carruthers? But peer pressure implies pressure. I mean, like, not only am I modeling this behavior, I'm pressuring you to change yours.
11:31 Speaker 03 No, in my understanding of the term, it doesn't mean that. I've been thinking about this sort of influence for a long time. I think one of the most interesting early examples that got me thinking about it was from an Alan Font film. He was the old candid camera in Perserrio. He would put people in odd situations and film how they'd react. So he posted an ad for a really good sounding job. It paid well, it didn't have very difficult to fulfill requirements, involved travel and meeting interesting people. So, of course, a lot of people wanted to sign up for interviews for this job. He booked appointments. And in the film, we see a guy arrive for his interview.
12:16 Speaker 03 He's shown into a waiting room. There are four other people already sitting in there waiting. He sits down with the other four. The film zooms in on the later arrival's face. And his expression goes from one of complete impassivity to a look of grave concern, alarm. How would I describe it? The camera pans back and we see that the reason he's alarmed is that the other four have at no apparent signal stood up. They're taking off all their clothing. And finally, we see him tip. Psychologically, he shrugs, he gets up and he takes off all his own clothing.
12:58 Speaker 03 And the scene ends, we see all five of them standing there naked, waiting for what comes next. And I think the impulse is to think, what an idiot. He was so easily swayed by the example of these peers. Look, he wanted this job. He didn't know what the drill was. He was the last to arrive amongst the five of them. If anybody knew what the drill was going to be about, it was they. They thought it was worth going through the next steps. Is it so obvious that he was making a foolish decision to mimic what they were doing? I certainly wouldn't be prepared to argue for that position.
13:38 Mike Carruthers? So the term peer pressure really isn't accurate. It isn't pressure. It's not trying to force someone to do something. Because if those people in the waiting room were sitting there fully clothed and told this guy, really, come on, take your clothes off, and pressured him to do it, he'd leave, he'd run.
13:55 Speaker 03 Yeah, I think that's a good point. Yeah, I had thought to put it that way, but it was the fact that they thought it was worth doing that was so compelling to him.
14:05 Mike Carruthers? So what are some other examples, especially ones that maybe we're not aware of, of peer pressure at work?
14:12 Speaker 03 One of the demonstrations that surprised me most, the question was, does the amount of weight you gain depend upon the amount of weight gained by others around you? One of the early studies showed statistically that there was actually a fairly strong link, that if others in your social network became obese...
14:34 Speaker 03 You were much more likely to become obese yourself. But the most convincing demonstration of that to my eye came from a military study. And what they showed was that if somebody were stationed to a new post in which the obesity rate in the new county was 1% higher than the county they'd just left, then all the adult members in that military family were 5% more likely to become obese in the new location. It was just an eye-opener to see that study. To me, I had no idea that obesity would be contagious in that way.
15:18 Mike Carruthers? And it's so unconscious. It's not that someone is trying to get you to eat more or suggesting that you eat more. It's just being around people who eat more, then you're likely to eat more and gain weight.
15:33 Speaker 03 And there have been studies of drinking among students. Students are paired randomly with roommates at one college. They have evidence on whether the roommates with whom they were paired were drinking significant amounts of alcohol in high school. The students who were paired with such roommates had dramatically lower grade point averages in their second year in school. The influence of living with substantially heavy-drinking roommate was quite profound in terms of measurable outcomes for those students.
16:08 Mike Carruthers? It's so interesting to hear that because it doesn't feel like that. I don't feel like I'm being influenced by people around me in things like how much they drink or how much they eat, nor do I think I'm influencing them. But clearly, from what you're saying, that is going on.
16:28 Speaker 03 I advise my students, look carefully at the people who work at the company you're thinking of joining. Because you're going to become more like those people. If you think, oh, this job pays well, I'll pay off my student loans in a hurry and then move somewhere else. You know, in the process of being there five years, you're going to become a lot more like those colleagues of yours. If you think they're admirable people, they're the kind of people you'd like to become more like than well and good, but oftentimes, people take those jobs knowing that they're going to be amongst people they don't admire. And I think they overlook the effect that is likely to happen, which is they'll become more like them.
17:10 Mike Carruthers? We're discussing the science of peer pressure, and my guest is Robert Frank. He is a professor at Cornell University's Graduate School of Management, and he is author of a book called "Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work." This episode is sponsored by Vinted. You know, I remember interviewing an organizing expert who offered this really clever trick for figuring out which clothes you should get rid of. You go to your closet and you look at the clothes hanging there. And chances are, the ones toward the middle are the clothes you wear most often. But the clothes pushed way over to the left or the right, some of those you probably haven't worn in years, and yet there they hang, taking up space.
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20:21 Mike Carruthers? So go to shopbeam.com/sysk now. That's shopbeam.com/sysk. So Robert, one of the things about peer pressure when it comes to parenting, for example, is that we hear that peers can have a greater effect on kids than their parents.
20:44 Mike Carruthers? Is that true?
20:45 Speaker 03 Oh, I think there's some support for that idea for sure. Your parents do influence you as well, but the people who are most like you, that you spend most of your time with, that's the strongest influence on your own behavior. And by the time you're out of the house and in school, that's eight hours a day, seven, eight hours a day, you're not with your parents. The hours after school, mostly you're not with them either. You have a dinner hour with them, short time at breakfast. Most of the time, as a kid, you're not with your parents. So it's not all surprising that the quantitatively biggest impact on behavior would be from others besides parents.
21:27 Mike Carruthers? Often, it seems that peer pressure is, I don't know, it's just so random. The influence just happens. It's why your mother didn't want you hanging around with the wrong crowd, because just because you were with them, their influence would rub off on you and you would behave like them. But sometimes, it seems more organized, like stopping smoking. I mean, fewer, far fewer people smoke now because of peer pressure, but it all got a kickstart from things like high taxes on cigarettes, a lot of places banning cigarette smoking in the buildings. It became, that kind of pushed it along.
22:09 Speaker 03 And in so many other domains where peer behavior is known to have a huge effect, we should do more of that. So solar panels, it would be good if more people adopted them. And in fact, we do encourage people to take that initial step by subsidizing the adoption of solar panels. And that's something that's highly contagious. We've got studies that show how dramatically the number of installations in a neighborhood rises when there's been one random new installation that other people see.
22:40 Mike Carruthers? Mostly, though, we've been talking about big things: drinking, smoking, drugs, solar panels, you know, it's an expensive investment. But does this all work on every level? In other words, if you hang out with kind people and watch them being kind, you're more likely to be kind, but it's really kind of hard to put your finger on kind as opposed to smoking or drinking?
23:05 Speaker 03 Yes, it works on every level that has ever been studied. And if somebody doesn't believe that, let's see some evidence to the contrary. I've not seen any evidence at all that peer behavior of any type that we can measure has no effect on other people in the group. That evidence either is well-hidden, or it doesn't exist.
23:30 Mike Carruthers? Do you know if peer pressure is the same in all cultures? Or is it particularly a Western thing that peer pressure has so much importance and significance?
23:40 Speaker 03 I have not conducted any systematic study of the strength of peer influence in the US as opposed to other places. But my strong expectation would be that this is a deeply rooted component of human nature. It would be astonishing to me if the process were fundamentally different in other places. But I have to say, I don't have any evidence to back that up.
24:05 Mike Carruthers? What's so interesting about this is that peer pressure just has to happen. You can't like force it on somebody. You just have to model it. It has to be something that's very organic in daily life as opposed to a goal. Like, we're gonna change his behavior by pressuring him.
24:27 Speaker 03 I think when people feel pressure to change, they often resist. So it's often counterproductive to pressure people in that overt way. But the whole point of thinking systematically about the importance of peer pressure is to get people to change their behavior. Right now, people behave as if their own behavior has no influence on anybody else. I think it's because it's such an organic process, because it operates so much out of awareness, we greatly underestimate the effect our own behavior has on others.
25:04 Speaker 03 And again, sometimes our own behavior is a good example for others and we'd like to see more of that. Other times, as in smoking and excessive drinking and other asocial behaviors that has a negative influence, we'd like to see less of it in those cases. And it's perfectly within our grasp to encourage more of the behaviors that have beneficial spillovers and discourage the ones that have negative ones.
25:31 Mike Carruthers? Are there any other examples, the one you gave about solar panels, like when one house puts solar panels on the roof, it drastically increases the chances that other people in that neighborhood would do the same thing. Are there other examples like that, that, you know, that's kind of keeping up with the Joneses, I guess, but?
25:51 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's very difficult to find a domain where there wouldn't be ready evidence of that. One of the ones that's related to the solar panel example would be the adoption of hybrid cars. The interesting case study to my eye is the comparison of the Honda Civic Hybrid and the Toyota Prius Hybrid. They were introduced at about the same time. The Prius was different from the other Toyota cars of the same size. It had a completely distinctive shape. If you were driving one of those, everybody knew at a glance you were driving a hybrid.
26:33 Speaker 03 The Honda Civic Hybrid looked exactly like the Honda Civic Non-Hybrid, the one with the gasoline engine. And what happened in the wake of the introduction of those two cars was that sales of the Prius took off like a rocket ship. They spread like wildfire. People saw that other people were driving hybrids. That was, some people call it virtue signaling, but it was a behavior that the community generally approved of. We like conservation, we like steps that reduce people's carbon footprints, and people were eager to climb onboard that train. They would have climbed onboard the Honda Civic train if they'd known about it, but
27:17 Speaker 03 they couldn't tell by looking at it that there even was such a train.
27:21 Mike Carruthers? Can you think of an example of peer pressure? Where if I thought about it at the time, I would realize, oh, this is peer pressure, and maybe not fall for it.
27:32 Speaker 03 So you're out early on a Saturday evening. You're looking for a place to eat. There are two restaurants. You're in an unfamiliar city. There are two restaurants you walk by. There are several diners seated, talking animatedly in one of them. The other one's empty. Which one do you go to? You don't think of yourselves as being pushed around by peer pressure. You choose the one that's already populated. That might not be the better choice. Maybe the first people who arrived on the scene were tourists too. They didn't know where to go, and just at random, they went to the one they chose. And it's actually a much worse restaurant than the other one. So I don't think we're aware of the process.
28:15 Speaker 03 We don't feel manipulated by it. It's the right decision, I think, to go to the one where people are seated, because the odds are that they are locals and that they do know the difference, which one is the better restaurant. But the fact that we would be monitoring whether we're being influenced and taking cognitive steps to interfere with the process, that's a very rare phenomenon, I'm sure.
28:39 Mike Carruthers? Yeah. Well, it's really interesting that we're influenced in so many ways by our peers without knowing it, recognizing it, being aware of it at all. And we're doing the same thing to other people.
28:52 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's not only interesting, it's an enormously valuable and almost completely unexploited opportunity. And again, the smoking policy case is the role model. We've achieved enormous good for society as a whole by taking steps that have reduced the smoking rate so dramatically. We need to cut back carbon emissions. We need to do all sorts of things that are not in individuals' interests necessarily to do on their own, but are collectively very much in our interest to do. And if we can prime the pumps that will make those actions more likely to happen, we can just reap enormous benefits by doing that.
29:35 Speaker 03 That's the real policy goldmine that's sitting here.
29:39 Mike Carruthers? Well, it really makes you think about all the people that maybe have influenced you in your lifetime and all the people you have influenced somehow in your lifetime. Robert Frank has been my guest. He is a professor at Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management. The name of his book is Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work. And as I always do, I have put a link to that book that directs you to Amazon in the show notes. Thanks for being here, Robert.
30:11 Speaker 03 Okay, good to talk with you, Mike.
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31:14 Mike Carruthers? There has no doubt been times in your life when you have felt shy. Often when I think of times I have felt shy, I also had that feeling of being intimidated by the situation or by someone. So, everybody feels shy sometimes, and some people feel shy a lot of the time. So, what is shyness? What's the difference between a shy person and an introvert? How do you make sure shyness doesn't become a problem? Here to discuss all this is Lynn Henderson. Lynn is the founder of the Social Fitness Center and the founder and co-director of the Shyness Institute, and she's author of The Shyness Workbook.
31:57 Mike Carruthers? Hi Lynn, welcome.
31:58 Speaker 01 Thanks so much, Michael. Glad to be here.
32:01 Mike Carruthers? So, everybody knows what shyness is and what it feels like, but how do you define it exactly?
32:08 Speaker 01 It's a fear of negative evaluation that is, sometimes interferes with your doing what you really want to do. That's when it's problematic, but it's only 2% of the population who say they've never experienced shyness. It's a universal human emotion.
32:27 Mike Carruthers? And it seems to me that it's pretty situational. I mean, I have felt shy sometimes and not felt shy other times.
32:34 Speaker 01 Exactly.
32:36 Mike Carruthers? Why is that? Is it just because you just don't feel secure, or what?
32:41 Speaker 01 That's a good question. I think it depends sometimes on your history, whether or not you've ever been in a similar situation that didn't go well.
32:52 Speaker 01 It can be that kind of thing. It can be things that you've heard about a particular situation. I mean, it's usually, getting past shyness is usually debunking that, sort of getting into the same situation and finding out that it usually goes quite well.
33:10 Mike Carruthers? So, does shyness serve a purpose? It seems like it's kind of protective, in a way.
33:17 Speaker 01 Well, yes, and you had wondered about the origin of shyness, and I think it is left over in evolution for predator detection. And I think it's just exaggerated and it's not usually gonna happen, what you're afraid of, in real life, because even if the situation doesn't work out as well as you hope, it's very seldom a disaster. And the other thing we do with people is, we teach them compassion imagery and that sort of thing, that they can also use to support themselves, or even imagining that a good friend is by your side when you're trying something new.
34:00 Mike Carruthers? Yeah, because I would imagine that shyness tends to disappear if you're with people you know.
34:08 Speaker 01 Oh, yes. And it's only 2% of the population that say they've never been shy. So, it's a common, it is a common emotion.
34:18 Mike Carruthers? And they may be lying.
34:21 Speaker 01 That crossed my mind, too.
34:25 Mike Carruthers? How can you never be shy? I can't imagine going through life and never being so sure of yourself that you don't or so I don't care that you would ever say that.
34:37 Speaker 01 And 60% of Stanford students said they were shy when we did a research study with them.
34:44 Mike Carruthers? And when people say they're shy, do they usually mean that in a negative way? They're shy and I wish I wasn't?
34:52 Speaker 01 That's a really good question. Sometimes people will say they're shy and they are fine with it because they recognize that it's just an emotional state and they can get past it.
35:05 Speaker 01 And if somebody is too confident, you don't trust them. We all trust people more who make little mistakes and who aren't perfectly confident. Because if somebody's perfectly confident, you start to wonder if they're manipulative or why they need to be so perfect or that kind of thing.
35:26 Mike Carruthers? What's the difference between being shy and being an introvert?
35:30 Speaker 01 Introverts usually have one or two good friends, but they like their solitude. So it's not concern about negative evaluation, it's just a preference they have. And they need to be by themselves to sort of restore their energy. But it's not a concern about negative evaluation.
35:51 Mike Carruthers? And so what is the prescription for shyness? I mean, it does seem, as you just pointed out, it can be charming. Maybe it's not something you fix, maybe it's fine the way it is.
36:05 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, I think often that's the case. And particularly people who, well, one of the issues or one of the problems sometimes is that people who are very attractive and who feel shy often look snooty. People misread the shyness as snootiness, and of course, that doesn't even occur to them.
36:26 Mike Carruthers? That's interesting. You're right. If you see someone who's really good-looking and they're not talking to anybody, you think, "Well, what a snob. What a... How stuck up are they?"
36:35 Speaker 01 And that's why I like the idea of social fitness training, is that people are situationally shy, and with social fitness, you just do what you're scared of anyway, until you get used to it, and the fear goes down. And that's really... That's why group therapy is so helpful for shiners. It's because you've sort of got a support team on your side, and other people have the same experience. And when I was running shyness groups, nobody would believe that the other group members were shy, because they were attractive, nice people, and they felt the same way. And that was really reassuring to all of them.
37:16 Speaker 01 There was one really neat experience I had at a group I was running at Stanford, and one of the fellows wanted to ask somebody out, and he was afraid to do it. The group encouraged him to do it. He did it. Then he came back, and he said, "Oh, my gosh, now I have to go on the date. I'll be a basket case, and she'll reject me." And one of the fellows in the group said, "Well, why don't you just tell her you're feeling shy?" And he said, "Are you kidding? She would be so critical of me." And he said, "Well, you could try it." So he did. He tried it. And the woman said, "Oh, my goodness, I'm so relieved." So am I. And they had a nice time on the date.
37:55 Mike Carruthers? Well, it does seem oftentimes, just thinking of experiences I've had, that I'll walk into a room and feel shy right away, but it goes away pretty quickly.
38:07 Speaker 01 Yes. And sometimes, when somebody's problematically shy for a while, they also say negative things to themselves, like, "I won't be able to do this," or "It's going to be too hard." And in groups and that sort of thing, we can practice more supportive self-talk. You know, "Oh, I've seen you do it before. I know you can do it. I'm gonna have your back." I mean, that kind of thing, supportive self-talk, doesn't occur to them sometimes, when they're feeling shy and self-critical about it.
38:39 Mike Carruthers? But how do you practice...
38:42 Mike Carruthers? Your, practice away your shyness with people you know because these people don't make you feel shy.
38:48 Speaker 01 Well, what you do is you role-play the situations that you want to encounter in the world. And so, you, you hear yourself having a nice conversation and that sort of thing. And then, the homework is, then you go do it in the real world. So, you've had the practice, you know how sometimes you can practice a talk? And once you've had the experience of doing it, it's, even though you've not had an audience, it makes it easier and better?
39:19 Mike Carruthers? Yeah, but it's, but not a lot better. I mean, it's still not the same experience as speaking in front of strangers.
39:25 Speaker 01 No, it's not, but it can help people just to have in the back of their minds, you know, I need to ask them questions, I can look for common interests, I can share about my interests, I can look for what I find interesting about them. And when you're thinking about these things, you're doing that more than the negative self-talk.
39:48 Mike Carruthers? Yeah, because you can only do one thing at a time, I guess, or your, your brain can only do one thing at a time. And if it's doing that, it's not telling you, telling yourself how horrible you are.
39:58 Speaker 01 Right, right. And sometimes, when people develop problematic shyness, it has been because they've been teased or humiliated in class, maybe, they've had some kind of an experience growing up that has been difficult and created, if, if it's problematic shyness. And so, one of the ways that they, they can see how they got there and what made them start to withdraw, and of course, it's just like physical fitness, if you don't practice, then it's much harder. But if you do something every day, it just gets easier.
40:37 Speaker 01 And it's really so gratifying to see them do what they're scared to do and how much they enjoy it when they do do it.
40:47 Mike Carruthers? What in your mind is the difference between shyness and problematic shyness?
40:52 Speaker 01 Problematic shyness is that you're not doing what you want to do. You don't ask that girl out. You don't go to a new group. You don't socialize. It's the withdrawal that separates them. If you're out there and experiencing shyness, but you're doing new things, the shyness reduces over time. As a matter of fact, we did an interesting study of people who were known to be outstanding leaders in their fields, who said they were shy. And the interesting thing about them was they tended to lead from behind and let other people take the spotlight because they didn't really want the spotlight. But they were keen observers of people. They listened carefully and were empathic.
41:37 Speaker 01 They were motivated, persevering, strategic and genuine. And they were passionate about their values and their work. That's why, that's how they could become leaders, is that they cared so much about something, they were willing to do it. They did over-prepare for public speaking tasks and they knew that they just had to push past the shyness to get the job done. And one time, we did this group problem-solving task and they did so well in the problem-solving task in the group that I videotaped them and I showed it at a conference with their permission. And I said, "Would you have any sense that these people were shy?"
42:18 Speaker 01 I mean, so they can do a lot of things they think they can't do.
42:24 Mike Carruthers? I'm getting the impression that your work and your experience is that the more you do the things that make you feel shy, the less shy you will feel in the future.
42:36 Speaker 01 Exactly.
42:38 Mike Carruthers? But it does seem that even if you're afraid to ask Suzie out and you finally do, and maybe that doesn't, the relationship doesn't work out too well. So now you need to ask Becky out. That having asked Suzie out doesn't make it any easier to ask Becky out.
42:56 Speaker 01 The interesting thing about it, and of course, if they're in a group where they've got people around them who can share their own experiences, everybody has that experience. You know, some people say no, some people say yes. And one of the things that we also know is that if you're trusting and try to have positive expectations, you get disappointed, you do get hurt, but not as much as if you're afraid all the time and you don't do it.
43:25 Mike Carruthers? You just said positive expectations and, you know, I think of the, "Hey, you don't want to go out with me, do you?" Kind of, you know, that's not really telegraphing positive expectations that it is in the ask.
43:42 Speaker 01 Right, but there's a thing that goes along with it, which is trust, that you trust in the long run, something will work out. How many things in life do we get on the first try? Not many.
43:57 Mike Carruthers? But when you say it will work out, what will work out?
44:01 Speaker 01 In the long run, you will probably ask somebody out who will say yes, and you will have a good time.
44:08 Mike Carruthers? Just may not be Suzie.
44:10 Speaker 01 Right.
44:11 Mike Carruthers? Or Becky.
44:12 Speaker 01 Exactly. Mm-hmm. But if you're, if you can fail and have that be okay, you don't know what's going on with Suzie or Becky, or who else they might already be interested in, or you don't know why they said no. But you can make up a lot of horrendous stories about how they, why they might have said no. And that's why group therapy is helpful, is you can normalize some of that. It's harder when they get isolated and they don't have people to talk to.
44:43 Mike Carruthers? Is there something about shyness and not wanting to be the center of attention, is there some connection to that?
44:51 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think that's often the case. They don't want a lot of attention.
44:56 Mike Carruthers? Why?
44:58 Speaker 01 Again, it's usually, what if I fail? What if I let somebody down? What if I don't do a good job? It's that kind of thing, those kinds of automatic thoughts that can get in the way, the negative automatic thoughts. And you learn to say, well, I'll learn something in the process and then I'll get better at it.
45:19 Mike Carruthers? My sense is that shy people in the Monday morning quarterbacking of a social interaction are pretty hard on themselves.
45:27 Speaker 01 One of the things that's important here is that fear isn't the thing that holds people back the most, it's shame. And you don't feel ashamed often until after a social situation, where people who feel shy will sometimes leave the situation. And then if anything in the conversation hasn't gone well, even if there are three or four people involved in the conversation, they'll take all the blame, all the responsibility. Well, it must have been something about me. So you really have to work with those negative thoughts, too. Because the shame, what do we want to do? We want to go in our bedrooms and suck our thumbs. We don't want to get out again. Shame is a very lethargic kind of feeling.
46:12 Speaker 01 And yet, it's also universal. And when they begin to understand that, that social anxiety is universal, shyness is universal, shame is universal, then all of a sudden, they think, well, I'm not alone. And you don't have to be in a shyness group to experience shame.
46:32 Mike Carruthers? Well, on one hand, it's encouraging to hear that the more you push past your comfort zone and make an attempt to be social, the easier it will get. But as hard as it might be, you've got to just get up the nerve to go out and give it a try and meet people.
46:51 Speaker 01 And they need to make friends, which they can do. They tend to be, when they start working on things, they tend to do very well. We had a lot of Stanford students in our early groups. And these guys would have been, you know, working on their PhDs and hadn't talked to a woman in years. And they'd come into the shyness clinic and they'd say, oh, my gosh, I'm never going to be able. And of course, they were. And I think it's like most things, if you've got people who believe in you, that you really can and will do it, that makes a big difference. And then you can't get away with just feeling, we can't get away with just feeling sorry for ourselves.
47:30 Mike Carruthers? Is shyness particularly problematic when it comes to romance? Is that where it rears its head mostly? Or is it lots of different situations?
47:42 Speaker 01 It's lots of different situations. And it depends on any situations from your past where you felt let down and disappointed, and then you didn't try again. But I, I think some people are shy about dating. Some people are shy about work and meetings and that sort of thing. Somebody, some people are only shy about public speaking tasks.
48:05 Mike Carruthers? So everyone's been in the situation where you're at a party, or you're at a function, and you see someone you want to talk to, but you don't. You just, there's something that holds you back from saying something. Is that shyness?
48:23 Speaker 01 Well, if it has to do with a fear of negative evaluation, that the person's going to respond badly, then it's probably shyness.
48:33 Mike Carruthers? Yeah.
48:35 Speaker 01 It's because the shyness is mostly related to the fact that they're not going to get the outcome they hoped for. And they don't have enough of a learning model that they're gonna just keep learning and all of that is okay.
48:51 Mike Carruthers? I remember somebody saying, you know, that shy people are concerned about what other people think and evaluating them negatively. And you know what other people are thinking? Nothing. They're not thinking about you. They're thinking about themselves and they're not negatively evaluating you. They're probably more worried that you're negatively evaluating them.
49:14 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm. And I think, once they begin to understand that this is pretty universal, they begin, it helps them begin to relax a little bit.
49:25 Mike Carruthers? That's gotta help when you realize that you're not the only one, that everybody has moments like this and that there is comfort in numbers.
49:36 Speaker 01 That's really true. That's really true. I think when they understand that better and they just understand that it's part of life.
49:44 Mike Carruthers? Well, I think a lot of us think of shyness as like a character trait, like, you know, he's tall and he's kinda shy. But shyness can be a real problem, so it's good to hear that if it is a problem, you can do something about it. And even if it isn't a problem, it's nice to know that everybody has dealt with this and that we all struggle with it at some time or another. Lyn Henderson has been my guest. She's founder of the Social Fitness Center and co-director and founder of the Shyness Institute. The name of her book is The Shyness Workbook, and there's a link to it at Amazon in the show notes. Thanks, Lyn.
50:21 Speaker 01 Oh, well, it was fun to talk to you.
50:27 Mike Carruthers? I'm sure we've all had that experience, you know, when you just click with somebody. Not just in romance, but it happens in friendships, it happens in business relationships.
50:39 Mike Carruthers? And it sort of feels like magic. So what is it? What's going on? Well, research about people who click indicates that these encounters are actually more important than we once imagined. If a relationship does develop after you clicked, it is often more meaningful and passionate than if you didn't click right away. So what makes people click? Well, much of it is a mystery, but interestingly, a few things do seem to pop up. Shared adversity for one. People who have been through similar tough times often click. Vulnerability. When you share your true self with someone, it is often reciprocated and a bond is immediately formed.
51:22 Mike Carruthers? And proximity. In a college dorm room, for instance, people are twice as likely to click with the person in the next dorm room than they are with the person two doors down. And the chances of clicking drops 50% with each door farther down the hall. And that is something you should know. One of the things that helps a podcast stay very visible is when people subscribe to listen or follow it. I know the industry is trying to change the terminology from subscribe to follow, but people still say subscribe. And all that means is it's free. And all it means is that once you subscribe, then the episodes are sent right to your device so you can listen to them as soon as they're available.
52:07 Mike Carruthers? It really helps us. So please, if you haven't already become a subscriber or follower to this podcast. I'm Micah Rathers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.
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