Latest / The XX Lab / Why You Assume the Worst About the People You Love | Dr. Yael Schonbrun #24

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Why You Assume the Worst About the People You Love | Dr. Yael Schonbrun #24 · The XX Lab

• speaker-0: Have you ever been absolutely certain that you knew what someone meant, only to discover later that you had it completely wrong? Like maybe your partner is being quiet and you think that they're mad at you, or maybe your friend doesn't return a text and you think that they're upset, or maybe you hear somebody make a comment that you find offensive and you immediately think, I know who you are and you're an asshole. Here's the problem. We aren't necessarily as good at understanding one another as we think we are. And my guest today actually argues that the biggest problem isn't even that we misunderstand each other, it's that we're so often certain that the way that we've interpreted them is correct. Dr. Yael Schombrunn is a clinical psychologist, couples therapist, and assistant professor at Brown University. And she's spent the last two decades studying and seeing firsthand in the therapy room what happens when people misunderstand one another. She's the author of work. Parent Thrive, and her new book, Why Don't You Understand Me, explores the science of human understanding and why even people who love each other and genuinely want to connect can still get each other completely wrong. Today we're talking about why human communication is inherently ambiguous, why putting yourself in someone else's shoes can actually make you more confident without actually making you more accurate, and why two people can walk away from the exact same fight. Both being completely convinced that they're the victim. We also talk about how to understand someone without agreeing with them, and how to interpret people's behavior more generously without becoming naive. And then we take the conversation beyond our intimate relationships, because if we can so easily misunderstand a spouse we've lived with for 20 years, what makes us think we can possibly accurately infer the intentions of character or a complete stranger from one sentence, one social media post, or a 30-second video? We talk about outrage, about our tendency to assume the worst about people that we don't know, and what happens when we become so certain about what someone meant that we stop being curious enough to ask. Ultimately, this is an episode about intellectual humility, learning to hold our interpretations of other people lightly enough to leave room for the possibility that we might be wrong. And whether you're trying to have a better relationship, navigate conflict at work, or want to understand someone whose worldview is completely different from your own. This is a conversation you're not going to want to miss. This is the XX Lab. I'm Dr. Sarah Hill. Let's get started. Dr. Yael Schoenbrunn, welcome to the XX Lab. speaker-1: I'm so glad to be here. Thank you so much for having me. speaker-0: Yeah, I'm really excited to talk to you because you have a new book, Why Don't You Understand Me? And it's really talking about communication breakdown in a lot of ways. And it happens all the time. And I think that in our contemporary culture, where we have what I think we can all agree on is like outrage culture online, and there's sort of a breakdown in friendliness and Grace toward other people's behaviors in public settings. I think that this book is more important than ever before because really what you're talking about is the fact that, you know, when people are telling us things or behaving in certain ways, that there's a lot of interpretation that goes on. Right. And a lot of the time, our interpretation about things isn't correct, but we're certain it's correct. Right. So we think that we're an expert on other people's behaviors in ways that we might not actually be. And this can really create problems for us. And given your experience as a clinical psychologist with more than 20 years of, you know, work with other humans, to what extent do you think that people's conflict with other people ultimately boils down to thinking that we understand something that somebody else means? when they're saying something or behaving in a certain way that isn't actually correct. speaker-1: Know what percent to put on it, but it's like 99%. I'm just kidding. I it's a lot. And the the origin story of this book is actually funny because I was working on something totally different. And I there was a a moment where I was on a hike with my family and venting to my husband about how the book wasn't gelling, it was a book about problem solving. And I was like, ugh, I should just chuck it and instead write a book about how everybody thinks that they understand everybody else perfectly and feels misunderstood by everybody and how that math just doesn't work out. And my husband goes, yeah, write that book. And so that's like the origin story of how I landed on this. For me, it almost felt too obvious because it's so much of what I do in my clinical practice where I specialize in the treatment of couples and relationships. And so much of the time in session is spent helping people to recognize that so much of what they assume they know and are confident is absolutely correct is not quite right. in both directions. And how hard it is to kind of make that realization stick, because even in session where I can help somebody recognize, okay, I thought that you didn't love me because you weren't expressing your love in a way that I identify as being love, okay, that makes sense. And then they go back out to their world and the old mental habits and interpretations just come right back because they're so well practiced. And so you really do have to chip away at it. There are so many levels of challenge that come with changing our understanding. But to your earlier point, a huge piece of it is the overconfidence, which is just a part of how we're wired. Overconfidence, as I say in the book, is like the bias that rules all others. We think we know much better than we actually know. And that isn't something that we can undo even by realizing it. It's gotta be a practice of recognizing, okay, I'm going to be overconfident in my assessment of this social situation, of what the other person means with their words. And so can I develop a practice of noticing my overconfidence and then being a little bit more curious than I otherwise would be. speaker-0: Now, does this only tend to happen when we're drawing negative conclusions? Because I think that sometimes we have a tendency when somebody behaves in a certain way. Let's say that our partner comes home and they don't talk to us immediately. Right. And so then we assume that they are upset with us, right? Or we bump up against somebody in the airport, right? And then we assume that that person is a jerk, right? Or they assume that we are a jerk because we bumped into them. I think that I have a tendency to feel particularly confident about negative types of assessments that I'm making or about like what somebody else's behavior means. Is there anything to that? speaker-1: Yeah, I mean, I think that we do tend to be more confident about our negative perceptions. But what's interesting, and this is a little bit different. So there's sort of like how confident are you, and how positive or negative are you? And I think a bit of what you're asking is what's the confidence of positive versus negative? My guess is, and I actually don't know the data, but my guess is that we are more confident about negative. I do think we skew negative, but what's also interesting is that we do tend to have positive illusions. In healthy, happy relationships that we see, for example, that happier couples tend to think their partners are better than reality warrants. And that's something that really serves relationships well. But if you think about it, for most of us, it only takes one negative experience, one significantly negative experience to really make it a lot harder to see the good in somebody. Whereas it's much harder to build a positive after you've had l you know a a negative start. speaker-0: Yeah, so can you give me some examples from everyday life where people can think and then sort of reflect on their own experiences of times when our interpretations of other people's behaviors or things that they say can create problems for us. speaker-1: Yeah, so I mean, there are lots of common situations. One of the most common in the couple setting is people who have what people often talk about as like different love languages. So if you have one partner who tends to communicate their care through physical affection, and the other who tends to communicate their care through words of affirmation, then you have kind of a mismatch and you have this misunderstanding of You know, one person saying, like, I don't feel love because you never say it, and the other person saying, I don't feel love because you never hug me. Right. And so those are kind of a a mismatch of the type of language that we're speaking. But in my book, I talk also about like confirmation bias. So like if you have a belief about somebody who, for example, has a different political party than you, then you're much more likely to take in information about them in this way that's distorted. And what we know from research is that if If you're a Democrat and you see a political party candidate from the opposite side, a Republican candidate, you're more likely to evaluate them negatively, and vice versa. The same thing is true if you're a sports fan. If the opposite team engages in some aggressive play, you're much more likely to think that should be called. Whereas if your team engages in aggressive play, you think that's just how the game is played. So there are these ways that we tend to confirm what we already think and sort of fit the data to to our beliefs. One other common issue that comes up that I talk a lot about in my book is this idea of shared reality that when somebody says, hey, that's not how I remember it, that we tend to get really angry. Like there's something about that that feels really threatening. And that gets to this idea that there is a fundamental human drive to exist in like what we see as, okay, like we agree, these are the facts on the ground. This is really what how truth is, this is really what is real about the world. And when somebody questions that, we're likely to say, you're gaslighting me, you're either ignorant or maliciously distorting what is true. And the reason is that either we have to distrust our own perceptions of reality, or we have to understand that the other person isn't trustworthy. And either of those doesn't feel good, but not trusting ourselves is a lot more scary. So we tend to sort of say, well, if you're not gonna agree with me what reality is, then I need to put you away. The problem with that is that most social realities are so complicated. So you can have two people, and I often see this in the couples' therapy room, where like, I'll I'll give somebody a couple a homework assignment, sit down and have an understanding conversation about your children and how you see parenting differently. And then I'll get them coming back in and I'll say, How did the homework go? And one person will say, We didn't do it at all. And the other person will say, What do you mean? We spent an hour doing it. And what they each classified as having the conversation is so different, but each one feels so assaulted by the other person portraying reality in such a different way. And again, that makes sense because we have that drive to exist in what feels like a shared reality. And so these are just a few common examples of the way that our internal processes cause us in interactions that feel like they should be simple. To be really complicated and to leave us with this feeling of, I am not understanding you and you are not understanding me. And that feels bad, right? We want to feel understood because it gives us that sense of being connected, of being reasonable, of being able to collaborate, of being able to trust, about being able to rely on one another. And when we don't have that, life feels harder and certainly relationships feel harder. speaker-0: It it's almost like the naive realism effect, right? Where it's like we tend to see the world according to our own sort of goggles, and we assume that everybody else sees the world the same way that we do. And that, you know, if somebody's driving faster than us, they're a maniac, right? And if they're driving slower than us, then they're an old person, right? And so we sort of judge reality completely depending on how we live in the world and who we are. And so I think, you know, all of us come into the world with our own unique lens on how things operate. And what you note in your book is like where we really get into trouble is when we assume that everybody has the same, like that we're sharing a lens. Right. And the tendency behind that, I think, is actually really kind of evolutionarily potentially interesting, just because I mean, it seems like it makes a lot of sense that we wouldn't want to question the fact that like we understand reality. Like I think that that would, you know, get us into a lot of, you know, sort of existential conversations with ourselves that, you know, wouldn't really be, you know, solvable. I think that there is like it it makes a lot of sense why we do this, but definitely creates problems for us, you know, and like where do our lenses come from? What is in our backpack? That's like affecting the way that we perceive different types of social situations and also even how confident we are that we're right about what we're perceiving. speaker-1: gosh, I mean the list is long, but I think it's everything from our childhood experiences to how hungry we are, whether we've slept last night, whether we're stressed out from work, whether we've had good relationships or bad ones, whether we've had trauma or not, our genetic predisposition. Like there are so many things that have an influence over how I perceive a situation versus how somebody else perceives a situation. And the thing about naive realism that you're pointing out is that we rarely recognize that. What feels true to us in terms of what we're perceiving feels objectively true. And so what we don't do is recognize how shaped our perception is by all of these factors. And I think that is the challenge. And as you're noting, it's not like we can put that away. If if, for example, I weren't wasn't to trust my perception of reality, it would be pretty scary to like cross the road or eat a piece of fruit. Cause like, how would I feel confident that it wasn't like something poisonous? How would I ever trust anybody? So we develop these heuristics for how to judge social situations. We learn, we grow. You know, some of the heuristics are a little bit like built into our biology and our wiring. And a lot of them are learned by our culture and our context and our place in history and the language that we speak and the people that we've interacted and the early childhood experiences and the adult experiences and where we work and what kinds of movies we watch, like so many things. And by the way, like how I perceive a social situation today is probably quite different than how I perceived it as a teenager. So it's even more wild. How strong my naive realism is that what I perceive feels objectively true, even when I can recognize that some decades that I won't mention the exact number ago, I perceived things totally differently. And so this naive realism that is that is really built into how the human brain works isn't a glitch that we can turn on or off, and nor would we want to, because it helps us move efficiently through the world and make decisions rapidly that keep us feel keep us safe. But the problem is when we sort of allow ourselves to go too far down the road of never questioning whether or not the way that we see things is always the right way. And that I think is what research shows can be really powerful. Like even some of the most prominent and prolific social scientists, like Danny Kahneman, who won the Nobel Prize, and his work really revolutionized the field of how we understand cognition and our biases. What he wrote in his book is like even he finds himself pr falling prey to cognitive bias, right? There's no warning bell, and especially when you most need it. When you most need it, you actually might feel the most confident. And so we can't expect that. What we need to do is develop a practice. And one of the practices is intellectual humility and also awareness of like, you know, being curious of, you know, how much is how I'm feeling physically today. shaping how I'm perceiving this person close to me. Like maybe they're not, you know, loading the dishwasher in that way to just get under my skin. Maybe they're loading it normally and I'm just really hungry. speaker-0: obviously it's not very efficient, time efficient to be curious about all of your interpretations, right? Because I think that one of the reasons that we have these heuristics and there's a lot of research that indicates that these heuristics essentially just save us a lot of time, right? And cognitive effort. Yeah, exactly. Because if every time that we saw, you know, a four-legged animal with a wagging tail that barks or whatever. If we had to like sit and figure it out and ask questions and like, am I sure it's a dog? Like looks like a dog, we would waste a lot of time, waste a lot of cognitive energy. So there's like a rule of thumb about when we should just have as a reflex to at least remind ourselves to be curious. Because I I I think that being curious is a really important sort of challenge for us. And like for myself, I've like I've really been working on a curiosity practice when I get upset about things. So for me, one of the things that I've sort of implemented in my own life, just in terms of trying to better understand people, but then also check my responses. So that way I'm not getting upset. I have teenagers. And so this this is like speaker-1: Like speaker-0: Yeah, this is incredible. This is like so important at this stage in my life. But it is instead of when something happens immediately. you know, having a response to it if I'm having a a negative response, like if I'm feeling, for example, angered or offended, that I start asking myself questions. Like, okay, like what does this actually mean? Like is that a good way to use curiosity? Or it like is there some other way that we can use curiosity strategically where we're raising it in times when it might be really beneficial, but not making our life inf infinitely complicated by asking, you know, follow up questions with every single perception that we have in the world. speaker-1: That's a great question. It's sort of like, do we want to sacrifice the ability to move through the world without being exhausted and overwhelmed constantly to, you know, have more generous thoughts? No. Like we we need to move, we need to get our job done. We need to parent. We need to make the meals. We need to, you know, get our work done. So there is a limit to, you know, how often you're going to stop and and be like, well, you know, what are the various layers? And, you know, let's stop and have a deep conversation about that. I often joke with couples that I meet with who are there for an hour of therapy that these conversations are good and people feel so good about them, but they don't translate outside of the therapy room because very rarely are people who have kids and jobs and a household to manage able to dedicate an hour of just devices away and let's just talk. So like there are limitations to what is possible. But I love your your use of anger or defensiveness as a cue to get curious. The other one that comes to mind that I use for myself is like when I'm landing on an overly simplistic, flattened narrative. And often it's a villain victim narrative of like that person is bad and this person is good. Usually that this person is either me or somebody I'm close to and that that person is somebody that you know has hurt me, somebody I love or hurt me. And The villain victim narrative is like a really reductionistic narrative. And what's more, research shows, and this is so interesting to me, that when we place people into the villain role, we not only see them as bad, but we see them as impervious to suffering. We see them as powerful and that they don't hurt. Whereas victims we see as being powerless, but also able to feel suffering acutely. And so what happens when we drop into that narrative is it kind of emboldens us if we position ourself or those we love into the victim role. It emboldens us to not worry if we're gonna harm somebody back because, well, they don't feel it the same way that we do. And so it it sort of contributes to these cycles of misunderstanding that can really compound over time. And so it's useful not just to keep yourself acting in line with your values, but also to be able to access the nuance. You know, most people, even if they've done something that are that is hurtful are more than the their hurtful behavior in that moment. And in fact, in my book, I talk about a a number of stories of like super understanders. And and one is this detective who interviewed a serial killer and extracted confessions from him. And it was so amazing to to interview her because what she said is, you know, even with this guy who has done, I mean, he sexually assaulted people, he murdered them, he he stole things, like he he was a guy who was really pulled by his psychopathology to do some really terrible things. And in some ways you could say, like, that is a bad guy. But she said, even as I was sitting there across from him, interviewing him about like these absolutely horrifying things that he had done, she could see that he was more than just a murderer. He was more than a bad guy. He also had humanity. And that for her, the ability to connect with people who had done really bad things was to be able to recognize their complexity. And so part of what curiosity allows us to do is to complicate our stories. But I would say like For some people, it's it's useful to sort of understand like the function of curiosity is to be able to prevent ourselves from dropping into a story that reduces the real complexity that people have down in a way that is just a caricature. And that causes us in turn to behave in ways that don't align with our values. One other cue to pause and get curious is in the moments where you notice that you're not. operating in line with your own personal values, the kind of person that you want to be in the context that you're in. speaker-0: Yeah, I do think that there's a tendency, especially if we have a history with a person. And let's say that we have a history with a person where they make disparaging remarks about our work performance or they make disparaging remarks about our parenting, that we cast that person essentially as a villain. And then everything else that they might subsequently say to us, right, then becomes cast in the same light. And I think that there could be a contingent of listeners. Who think, like, d do we need to give that person curiosity? Are we just sort of rolling over and accepting b bad behavior if we if we get curious about the behavior of somebody who's repeatedly said things that are hurtful to us? Or might there be something where we actually benefit from getting curious in that type of a context? speaker-1: Yeah, well, I can appreciate that we don't need to do the work to be curious about every single person who's done any everything bad in the world. But I do think that far more often than it feels useful, it is useful to be curious. And and the reasons are a few. So one is that when you dismiss somebody who y who you view as having done something hurtful. What you end up doing is you increase their likelihood to dismiss you. You therefore contribute to and and you're not alone in creating the situation. If they've done something hurtful, they also have a contribution. But the way that that can ripple out, that it can reinforce turn by turn, is that both people dismissing each other creates more of a separation, less of a dialogue, and less of an opportunity to understand and grow together and collaborate. And so when you contribute your side of like, well, that person is not worth talking to, that sense that they're going to feel of being dismissed and vilified is going to lead them to do the same to you and be less interested in knowing you or learning from you or collaborating with you. And I think that that's a part of what contributes to outrage culture. And we cannot, as individuals, undo that alone, but we can add more understanding and curiosity in a place where there is. little, right? You you can make a contribution there. And I I think it has value. The other reason that is that and and this kind of goes back to the detective and the serial killer. One of the other motivations that she had for understanding people who had done terrible things was both to hold them accountable, right? Like he needed to be in jail. He was not safe to be out of jail because of his psychopathology and You know, however you want to construct it, like he needed to be in a place where his community could be protected from him. And so being able to get that information was functionally helpful. But what she also said is understanding how he arrived at that endpoint of that kind of motivation to harm other people, understanding his background and the contributing factors could help identify people like him earlier in the future and help maybe even prevent it. And so there is like this functionality that I think we lose when we just dismiss people outright that I I think really can't be overstated. We're like we're missing valuable information as well as opportunities to connect with people. The other thing that I'll say too, and and this is research that I'm extremely fond of, is this research on what's called high-quality listening, which is listening with attention, with comprehension, and most importantly with positive regard. And what What researchers find is that when we listen to other people who have more extreme attitudes with high quality listening, right, when we see the good in them, even when they're expressing pretty extreme views, their views tend to become less extreme. And so that is another piece of functionality that I think we really miss out on. Like if I listen to my crazy uncle going on at Thanksgiving dinner about things that feel vile, and I say to him, you know, I love you. I really don't get it, but I think you're a really good guy. How did you arrive at views like that? I don't I don't understand. Help me understand. And I give my attention and I try to understand. As he is talking to me, me, the person seeing the good in him, he's gonna have more of a safe place to reflect on his views and how they might sound to somebody else, somebody that it that looks at him with fondness. And that in turn gives him a little space to. say, hmm, and to safely say, huh, maybe I don't, maybe that came across more extremely than I meant it. You know, I didn't used to feel this way. And that safety of being able to be seen positively gives us an opportunity to be reflective of more extreme views. And and that I think is really powerful. And again, is something that we don't think about in the moments where we're saying, well, they're toxic. I just need to shut them out. speaker-0: Honestly, I couldn't agree more. I found it very powerful to ask if somebody says something hurtful to me or says something that seems like a slight is just say, here's what I just heard. And I want understand the motivation behind that. Like, can you help me understand why you needed to say that? And not doing it in a confrontational way, but trying to do it in a way that's like really open to listening and understanding. Like why why is it that you that you said this? I just need to understand that. And Every time that I've done that, it's ended up with that person not even really realizing what they were doing and what it implied and a deeper understanding between us and a diffusing of the situation. It's worked every time. speaker-1: Yeah, it's a powerful thing to say to somebody. And I will say, like, I do that a lot in the therapy room with people who come across really prickly. I'll say, like, I can see that you have a heart of gold and that you care about your partner. The way that you just said that, if I was sitting in your partner's shoes, I would be like, ouch. Like I wonder if I wonder if you've ever thought about how that feels. Like, because, you know, your core feeling about your partner doesn't get conveyed in in the words or the tone or or sort of the attitude. What do you make of that? And and doing that, like recognizing like that's not who you are, but but that is maybe how it could be perceived really does give people an opportunity to be like, like that isn't who I am. speaker-0: Right. And a another piece of advice that you offer in the book that I really loved was that you advocate for what you call strategic generosity when interpreting other people's behavior. Right. And that is this practice of when you hear something or you see something, it's like obviously we don't have perfect information about why anybody does anything that they do. And oftentimes there can be a really generous way to interpret the behavior, right? Or a A completely ungenerous way to interpret the behavior. Like so our friend doesn't return our text, right? Our generous interpretation of that is they must have a lot going on. Right. And even maybe to be sympathetic, right? They must have a lot going on. I hope that everything's okay. Right. The least generous way to interpret that is this person is a jerk or this person doesn't care about me. And one of the things that I've noticed, and I think that there's some like kind of personality dislike predispositions that play into this, but people who Have non-generous interpretations of other people's behavior tend to be absolutely miserable. Right. And then because the way that self-fulfilling prophecies work, which is when you do something or you respond to something in a way that's consistent with your negative interpretation, right? So I think that you're a jerk, then I act like a jerk to you because I'm feeling defensive. And then you end up acting like a jerk and actually being a jerk to me. It ends up that their life and and the quality of their interactions with other people are just so much lower quality than what they would be if they were generous in their interpretations of other people's behaviors. And I think that a lot of times, at least in in my own life, I've found that when I catch myself having again a sort of like a knee-jerk reaction is like, my gosh, like this person must hate me. No, we tend to all exhibit a sinister attribution bias. Where when something ambiguous happens and we have to form a story about what that means, that we tend to assume the worst thing because our brain likes to be cautious and on guard for danger, and then say what is a more generous interpretation, like, my gosh, this person is probably busy and they probably are completely overwhelmed. And I've been there before and I'm sympathetic to that. And so maybe I'll actually even just check in on them in another day and just make sure that everything is okay. That leads to so much of a better outcome. And I found that people who have strategic generosity when interpreting other people's behaviors just tend to have better social interactions and really happier lives. speaker-1: Totally. Well, and and there's a couple of things happening under the hood there that I think you're kind of pointing to that I'll just make explicit and and one is the social reciprocity effect. Like what people do for us or toward us, we're much more likely to return. So if somebody is really kind to me, I'm much more likely to be kind to them. Somebody gives me a birthday present, I'm much more likely to put their birthday in my calendar and try to do my best, even though that's not my strength. But If somebody is rude to me, I'm much more likely to be dismissive and not that friendly back to them. So we are likely to kind of give what we receive. And so the people who are more giving are more likely to receive in return. speaker-0: Ask so because listening to that, I can imagine that some listeners are listening and say to themselves, Yeah, you know, I tend to assume the worst because people treat me badly. And so I'm just responding in a rational way. So, like, what's the answer there? Like, if you're somebody who feels like the, you know, you've kind of gotten a bad shake from people, like can you stop the loop by changing your own behavior? Because there's there's some vulnerability there, right? Like you're having to make yourself a little bit vulnerable to be gracious with people in this way. Yeah. speaker-1: Yes. So I I love that question. And it is kind of a complicated one. And there again are a number of things that I would sort of point to. So one is that we are much more acutely aware of the times that we are generous to other people than they are generous to us. And so we sort of count our gives as being more numerous than other people would, right? Because other people are not feeling our. Acute efforts and what it costs us to be kind. What they are feeling is their acute efforts and costs of being kind, whereas we are discounting them. So like the tabulation is off in inside of ourselves versus what we're assessing in others. And so for a lot of people who are like, well, I'm much nicer to other people than they are to me, that's probably what it feels like. And there might be some truth and that. it it's probably not entirely true. In fact, I mean, this is just this is a little bit of an aside, but there's research that looks at how much each partner contributes to the domestic chores. And the the numbers always add up to more than 100 because everybody counts their efforts as being more than they actually are. And yes, there is a gender disparity that comes out even when you're doing these self-assessments, but My point is more, everybody counts what they gave as much more than a hundred percent because it costs us. So it feels like a bigger number. Like when I am nice to, you know, my husband, I'm like, how how much effort did I put in? Like, how much effort did you put in? And I'm, you know, I'm gonna favor my own contributions relative to his. The other piece is what social scientists call noise, right? It's sort of like, We miss things because there is so much happening in the world at large and certainly in our social world. So like if I am making dinner and and my mind is distracted by what happened at work and I'm tired and you know I recognize like this there's a spill on the floor and the dog is barking and my husband comes and like gives me a hug because he sees that I'm stressed, I'm probably barely even going to notice his hug, right? But if he says something irritable because I didn't notice his hug, I'm gonna notice that. So, like our attention is managed by what's going on. And sometimes it misses the good stuff and overly catches the bad stuff. And so that's a part of what happens in these giving or not giving cycles, is that there's a lot of noise in the system. And for that reason, this idea of like perfect reciprocity doesn't actually work. And that's why. My recommendation is to be a little bit more generous in your understanding of others than you think you really should be. And the reason is because you're gonna miss what other people give you in terms of understanding and they're gonna miss what you give them. So you gotta like be a little bit more emphatic in what you give so that it can be received in the way that you intended. And you should also, it's helpful to be like really extra attentive to what people are trying to give you, even if it doesn't land perfectly, so that you can allow that to feed in a positive cycle. And the second reason is we all have bad days. Like there is gonna be a day that your partner is super crummy to you. That doesn't mean that you exit the positive cycle. It means that you let that go and try to be a little bit more understanding than you should be by sort of basic math, and that you invite them to do the same. speaker-0: Yeah, I'm sure that for some people that it would feel like they're allowing themselves to be walked over, right? If they're doing that. Like I'm just wondering, you know, I think that the reminder that our perception is skewed is helpful, right? I do think that sometimes people get resentful, especially in the context of romantic relationships where they feel like they're giving and they're giving and that their partner isn't giving, and and then that builds up resentment. Do you think that the just simply the reminder that we aren't making note of like our brain does not make note of all of the concessions that we're being given by our partner can be helpful or maybe almost like a generosity, like like you know, you hear about gratitude practice all the time, like where you keep track of, you know, like five things that I'm grateful for today, like five ways that, you know, I was given generosity with the way that I was I mean, I I'm just trying to think of like how to cultivate this sort of behavior, especially I'm thinking in the context of relationships, without building resentment and hostility, because I think that that happens sometimes. speaker-1: That totally happens. And I will say, just to make it clear, I don't think that people should just be generous. You will end up with like a doormat if you never expect anything from other people and you just are like, well, this psychologist said I should just be generous and therefore I'm gonna try to do that. You will end up resentful and burned out, and it's not a recipe for healthy relationships. The thing about strategic generosity is this idea that we can be both boundaried and and giving. We can be both self protective. And extremely compassionate. And it's finding that balance that works for us. Adam Grant, in in his book, Give and Take has this term that I really love called other-ish that kind of captures it, which is can we be like a little bit more generous than maybe feels fair, but not so generous that we're undermining our own objectives and our own values and really figuring out like what are your values? Like what is important to you? What do you really want to get? inside of your relationship and can you collaborate with the people that you're in relationship with so that you feel like you're giving a lot and that you're also receiving. And and the other thing that I'll say is I actually really discourage the scorekeeping. Like it's going to feel no matter what that you're giving more than you're receiving. And once you start to calculate it, it sort of is this marker in in these in these kinds of studies that look at scorekeeping of warmth and generosity kind of eroding. But what you do wanna feel is like I give a lot, maybe I give a little bit more than i is really fair, but I also get a lot. Like that's that's like at a very abstract level, what you wanna be feeling is that each of you inside of any given relationship really tries to be loving and caring and and generous in your own way, and that on any given day and any given moment, it's probably not gonna feel 50 50. It maybe often will feel like you give a little bit more and and Are you okay with that? Like, can you give a little bit more and and not feel like you're gonna end up super burned out and resentful? If that is the case, then then that can be a healthy, a healthy thing. If not, then you might need to sort of pull back a little and and communicate with your relationship partner again in whatever kind of relationship you're in, and saying, you know, I feel like it's been a little bit imbalanced, and I wonder if if there are ways for me, for for us to try to help me. meet this relationship need that I have. speaker-0: Right. And if we feel like our relationship needs aren't being met, right. Or, you know, our our we're dealing with s another person, let's say it's our boss or somebody else, and we feel like they're taking advantage of us. Right. And so we begin to cast them as the villain, right? Which is what happens a lot of times when we feel That we're being taken advantage of, or people are saying hurtful things to us. One of the things that you discuss in your book, and also is the it's the subject of many years of social psychology research, is just that once you cast that idea, it becomes very difficult to get that person out of that. Isn't that the case? Like, why does that happen? Like, why is it that once somebody is cast as a villain, it's really hard for us to see them do anything right? speaker-1: Yeah, it is, it's really hard. And this is like a piece of what I think is so tricky about doing couples therapy with people who have been unhappy for a while, is that we develop these what what social scientists call schemas, these sort of organizing cognitive structures. And like we place people into like this is who you are, this is who I am, this is how we function. And this feels like very fundamental. And it becomes almost like a mental habit of like, this is how I construct understanding you. And from that perspective, like once you get like a little piece of information that might contradict it, it's just such a tiny chip in this broader narrative. So like think of your least favorite politician, right? And I I won't name anybody, but like listeners, think of your least favorite politician. And imagine that they did something charitable, something kind. Like they opened a door for somebody who was struggling to open a door or They made a contribution or they passed a bill that was in line with how you would think like really good people operate. It's very hard to kind of fit that in. And you might sort of keep it as like, well, that was out of character, as opposed to saying, maybe I didn't really understand them after all, because it feels so true. And By the way, when I do this kind of exercise, people always say, but yeah, like the politician that I was thinking of, they would never do the thing that you just described. Right. Just kind of like, that's kind of the point. Like we can't even imagine it. We can't even entertain it. And so part of that is like we construct identity and it's it's kind of firm in in how we think about it, because similar to how we were talking about confidence in our perception, if everything was up for debate and everything was a moving target. It would be hard to navigate our world, our social world. We we almost are compelled, just for stability, not to mention efficiency, to kind of this is this person and that is that person. And I'm not going to redefine it every time I meet them. But recognizing that we can too quickly come to conclusions and overly simply come to conclusions can help us be more deliberate about that work of saying, like, I may. more globally see this person as as, you know, the villain, but they probably have more to them than I thought. speaker-0: Right. Yeah. And I think that like one of the recommendations that you make, and we sort of touched on it earlier, was just this recognition that people contain multitudes, and meaning that really bad people can do really good things, and really good people can do really bad things. And that if we're able to understand that and use that as our sort of working hypothesis about human beings, that it really can allow us to. get more nuanced understandings of like who people are and what they mean when they're doing or saying whatever it is that they're doing and saying. speaker-1: Absolutely. Yeah. I I think that that is so true. And really the the super understanders of the world are those who can kind of hold that, who can talk to somebody who has done really terrible things and say, you deserve compassion too. Right. It doesn't mean that you're not accountable and it doesn't mean that we shouldn't protect society from behaviors that you might continue to do. But at the same time, maybe we can say, you know, you hurt as well and you are struggling or or you need something that you haven't gotten, or you're trying to communicate something that that is feels really important to you, even if other people don't understand why. And can we hold that? And and it's hard work to hold that together. And the same thing is true, like, you know, when we put people up on a pedestal. That's a dangerous thing because those people contain multitudes too. Nobody, nobody is perfect. Nobody has gone through life without accidentally hurting somebody or even intentionally hurting somebody because they were grumpy. That is just what it is to be human. We're we're messy. And can we be open to all of that and be curious about all of that? In part so that we feel connected and a sense of belonging, in part so that we can collaborate on on the things that really matter to us, not just connecting, but like taking care of our world, taking care of our vulnerable citizens, finding ways to make progress on projects that, you know, most people think are of value. speaker-0: I think that the world has become less tolerant. Like I feel like people have become less tolerant of people with different viewpoints than themselves. And I I think that there's some pretty good evidence that this is true, that that, you know, we've become more polarized in so many ways culturally. And, you know, I think part of the problem is that we have a tendency to assume that if we understand somebody's point of view, that it means that we agree with it. Right. So let's say that I believe X, Y, and Z, and there's somebody who has an absolutely different view. So let's say I I think that this I endorse this political party. So, you know, I shouldn't try to understand why somebody might have these different types of political views. Because if I understand them, then that means I agree with them. But why is it that we make that assumption that if I try to understand you, it means that I agree with you. Or even if I do understand you, you know, God forbid. that somebody says, you know, like I am somebody who believes in abortion rights, but I understand somebody who does not. You know, that would be that would just make everybody's brains explode, I think, like to to say that. So why is it that we tend to think that? speaker-1: Yeah, well, I mean, part of voicing it out loud is that it there is this piece of group belonging and signaling group belonging that happens with some of these beliefs. So if you are in a camp that, you know, believes in abortion rights and you want to have a belonging with them, saying out loud, but I understand people who believe very differently is can create a threat to you. belonging to that group, because now you're in a sense expressing compassion for for the other group. And so part of what often happens in these more like group dynamics of like, are you on this side or are you on that side? Is that we're so wired to prioritize group belonging that part of what we do is we signal, no, I'm I'm with this camp. That camp is the worst, right? It's like a way to sort of make firm your your sense of group belonging. But I think that what we need to do as as modern humans is be able to recognize that what used to work in in group identity of like, well, if if my tribe doesn't survive, then you know, our genetic lineage will die out. Like it's no longer that world. Like we can survive even if we can see where the other side is coming from. And maybe there's more than two sides. Maybe there's a lot of nuance here that could be talked about and in a more productive way where we could arrive at policy that works for more people and is more humane across the board. So that's one piece is group identity and signaling. In terms of understanding and agreement, I do think just very broadly, we tend to conflate them. Like understanding is not the same as agreeing. Like I can understand as a therapist somebody who is suicidal or who, you know, has pressured their partner for sex or who has I don't know, abuse their child. I can understand them. And part of my work as a therapist is to understand and help them to change because I don't agree with that behavior, right? Okay, so I'm a therapist. But can we do that in other parts of our life? Can we say, you know, I really don't agree, but I'd like to understand how you arrived there. And that is not a non sequitur. Like those those two can go together. You can say, I see it really differently. I have a totally different idea of right and wrong. But actually, I really want to see where you come from. And the other piece that I'll also mention, this is an insight that comes from Carl Rogers, who's this great humanist psychologist. But he talks about one of the great fears that we have in trying to understand somebody who's really different than us is the fear of change. Like, what if I open myself up to this person that I kind of started off thinking they're not so great and they like convince me? Right. So it's like this fear of that that comes from. Protecting our identity and protecting our beliefs, because our beliefs are so much of like what we stand for and how we see ourselves and who we see ourselves as belonging with and not with. And so there is something that feels very threatening about opening up to somebody who might try to convince us to feel differently. And to that I say, I think it is scary to change, but if there really is something valuable to be learned. Can we do the scary work of changing, but also can we trust ourselves to believe what we believe for good reason and still be curious enough to hold space for somebody's different beliefs? And that isn't easy. But I think recognizing where the fear and the resistance comes from, and then making a deliberate choice about opening up to understanding, given that, and and sort of appreciating the value of it can make the work. I don't wanna say easier, but like you might feel more motivated to do it. speaker-0: I think that there's a lot to that. And I think that the more like something is tied to a person's identity, I think that the more threatening it's going to be. Right. And I think that in this, you know, our contemporary environment, one of the big things that people are divided on is politics. And I think it's because it's gotten so interwoven with identity, but it definitely makes it harder to listen and understand, try to understand somebody else because you threatens your entire identity and sense of yourself. And of course, nobody wants to do that. It's like we all want to be able to protect our really, you know, it's it's that whole thing about like wanting to be right all of the time and wanting to believe that our way that we see the world is the correct way to see the world. And having, you know, anything that goes against or is inconsistent with our existing worldviews feels like a threat. And, you know, we have a lot working against us. when it comes to trying to understand other people, especially when they have views that are different than our own. speaker-1: We sort of drop into like right versus wrong. And if it turns out that they're right, then I'm wrong. Like that would feel bad. And so and so the place that my mind goes is what about the possibility of there being more than one right way? Like the world is complicated, being a human is complicated, relationships are complicated, politics are complicated. Maybe there's more than one right way. And maybe each right way has advantages and drawbacks. And can we be curious about like what the drawbacks of our side are and what the advantages of the other side are and and say, you know, there's certain things that really feel off the table for me, but like I'd like to hear, you know, different things that might be s things that I'd find appealing. And that doesn't mean that I have to give up my view, but can I be curious about right versus right? speaker-0: So I want to ask you, like just as as we kind of begin to wind down, what can I want to start with the people that we have the closest relationships with? So maybe our partners or our friends. What is one thing or two things, if you don't want to just pick one? What is something that people can do to better understand their partners? And especially if there's a like a conflict? Because I think that a lot of times You know, even if we misunderstand our partners and we're misunderstanding them in a positive way, like as you noted, that positivity illusion where we tend to think that our partner is a lot better and more special than they actually are, like that way. speaker-1: That one just like just believe it. speaker-0: Yeah, that's right. Like, like we should just keep that going. You know, like don't stop the party. Like a lot of times when we really need to like stretch that understanding muscle is when there's a conflict. And so let's say that that it's the same conflict that tends to pop up, you know, over and over again with a partner or a friend. Like, what are some of the things that we can do to try to better understand? Like where our partner or friend is coming from in the behavior that is so objectionable to us. speaker-1: Yeah. So I think naming your certainty and your awareness that you're certainty does not mean that you understand everything. And quite to the contrary, saying something like, I we always have this fight and I always feel like I know what you're gonna say and what you mean and why you mean it. But actually I'm starting to wonder what I'm missing. What do you think I don't yet understand? What do you think I might be missing in in understanding you? And and ask them. I mean, and you can even start by saying, like, here's what I understand. What is missing in what I'm understanding? Right? Is and kind of name like there's probably something that I'm missing. And you'll get a lot of information almost always if you ask it in that way. In part because it feels good to have people be curious about us, but also If you only see the bad in other people, they are going to feel misunderstood. They are going to want to fill in why they're not just a junky person. Because nobody wants to be seen that way, especially by the people that they're close to. So in a conflict, you can say, you know, let's try to do this differently. Here's what I understood, what I've understood about the conflict before, but I'm going to guess that there's something I'm missing. What do you think would help to round out how I understand your side of it? speaker-0: Right. So getting curious, essentially. But it seems to me like curiosity is a really good solution to a lot of I mean, just about every misunderstanding. I think that it it all kind of boils down to that, doesn't it? Is like being generous in how we perceive other people. So not just assuming the worst. And then getting curious about, you know, why like why did you say that? Like I don't understand, I don't understand why you just said that. thing to me and and it feels hurtful. So I guess I wanna understand what your motivation was. speaker-1: Yeah, I think curiosity is like the best value. I think benefit of the doubt is is right up there too. And the the the third thing that I'll say, and this kind of goes before all the others, is awareness. Like if you can practice awareness of like, wow, I really think I know exactly what this other person is about. And what I'm learning is that that feeling doesn't mean that I actually know everything. And in fact, I can't know everything. So I don't know everything about what's going on for that person, how they arrived there, what they're feeling, what they really think. There are multiple layers of all people that are just inaccessible to the people who are not that person and in fact are inaccessible to that person because it's it's hard to kind of understand ourselves even because there's so much happening unconsciously. But if you kind of grow an awareness of like, I am really overconfident in how I'm interpreting what they're saying and and who they are. And can I use that awareness to prompt curiosity and to turn more towards benefit of the doubt of like, you know, I imagine that you're a better person than my brain is telling me. You don't have to say this out loud, but you can say it to yourself. I'm imagining that you're a better person than my brain is prompting me to believe. Help me understand what's good about the way that you're thinking or behaving or the values that you're holding. speaker-0: Yeah, I think awareness goes a long way in just about every level of communication, just because, you know, as you noted, and as listeners might not be aware, like most of what happens in our brain is unconscious, right? It's just like all of this unconscious stuff. And then our conscious awareness is like in a lot of ways just a spin doctor telling our brain stories about why we're doing things. So for example, if you go online and you see that somebody posts that, you know, they like bananas. And then you'll have in the comments section, like, well, you don't like oranges? Like, how how dare you not like oranges? Like oranges are so important. Did you know that like there's all these people whose lives depend on it? Do you want those people to die? I mean, you know, these like these like completely outsized reactions where people are drawing all kinds of conclusions and just assuming the worst based on a very limited amount of data, a complete lack of context, of understanding the context in which something is being said. And then having an outsized response that might this person just like oranges? And they didn't feel it necessary to make a complete Venn diagram of fruits that they enjoy and fruits that they don't enjoy. And just really being able to take that, you know, be generous, ask questions, don't assume the worst. speaker-1: That you're pointing to something that is so tricky and so pervasive, which is the online environments where it's almost impossible not to be reductive, and it's so tempting to be even more reductive than we might otherwise want to be, because just the space kind of lends itself. And the example that I'm thinking of is I write a lot for various media outlets, and sometimes I write for the Washington Post, which has a very lively comment section, and invariably that comment section is. Rough. Like it one should not read it, but I actually really value understanding like why people are so critical. But what often happens is people don't even read the article. They read the title. And you can say, you like they'll even admit it. Like, I read the title, like I find this author and this topic absolutely aversive. And I'm like, well, give me a chance, read the article. Or they'll sort of pick one one thing that I said and and really pick it apart in this really critical, sometimes quite mean way. So There's that side of it. And then there's the ripple effect of like my temptation is to say, well, that person is mean. Like, what's wrong with them? Troll, you know? And and then I'm contributing to it. I I don't ever comment back. But my my point is like there's something that really can spark a back and forth that is reductive on their side, reductive on your side. I feed more, you feed more, it amplifies. Now we think the other, both of us think the other person is absolutely worthless and toxic. And so wherever you are in the cycle, you have an opportunity, like like you're saying, similar for me, I have an opportunity to say, well, maybe that person didn't have time to read. And maybe there is something in their own history or maybe there's something about their day that really lent them to being highly critical and not that generous and but that's okay. Like they're allowed to read it and have a strong reaction. And maybe the next time they see my name, they'll they'll try again. And and maybe there's something I can learn from the way that I phrased something so that I'm less likely to trigger such a strong response in the future for readers who have a similar background that they do. So it's it's like, can we be generous? Can we be willing to learn from what doesn't always feel comfortable? And can we make space for trying to understand people who in the process might feel uncomfortable to us? Because I think there's value. Absolutely. speaker-0: So is there anything that you would like listeners to know that we didn't get a chance to talk about when it comes to communication and how to avoid misunderstanding? speaker-1: Yeah. Well, I guess like the the sort of overarching thesis that I think we've sort of talked around a little bit, but I'll just name it here very explicitly, is that communication is a set of behaviors that happens between people, but understanding is a set of processes that happens inside of people. And so if we just expect communication to prevent misunderstanding, we're sort of using the wrong tool because it doesn't match the functions that are happening underneath. And so that's really what this book is about, is helping readers understand. Like what drives understanding and misunderstanding that is sort of beneath communication that exists inside of people? Because when we can learn about those processes, we're in a much better position to be understood and to understand others. speaker-0: I love it. And where can listeners find why don't you understand me? And where can they find you? speaker-1: Well, the book is sold wherever you buy books and you can find out more about me at my website, which is my name, Y-A-E-L-S-C-H-O-N-B-R-U-N dot com. speaker-0: Awesome. Thank you so much for your time today. And thank you, listeners, for listening. speaker-1: Thank you so much.