Latest / The XX Lab / Why Is It So Hard to Say No? The Psychology Behind People-Pleasing | Dr. Vanessa Bohns #22

Transcript

Why Is It So Hard to Say No? The Psychology Behind People-Pleasing | Dr. Vanessa Bohns #22 · The XX Lab

• speaker-0: I don't know about you, but I have been in so many situations where I found myself agreeing to do something when I absolutely did not want to do it. And then later on, I was kicking myself and asking myself, why did I say yes? Today on the XX Lab, I'm going to be talking with Dr. Vanessa Bonds, an award-winning social psychologist and professor of organizational behavior at Cornell University. Her research examines influence, compliance, consent. And the surprising power we can have over other people. In this episode, Vanessa explains why saying no can feel so emotionally difficult. And this is true even when the request is completely unreasonable. We also talk about why other people are far more likely to say yes to us than we actually realize. We talk about the important difference between compliance and genuine consent. How salespeople in businesses can use guilt and urgency, reciprocity, and social norms to influence us, and why simply telling someone, you know, you can say no when we ask them to do something may not be enough to make them feel that they truly can. Vanessa also offers practical strategies for declining a request from a boss, turning down a second date, and how to give other people a genuine way out if we ask something of them. We also discuss her new book, Should I Say Something? Including when honesty is genuinely helpful, when vulnerability can bring us closer, why admitting how much you love your job can actually work against you, and how our fear of awkwardness often leads us to withhold things from other people that they might actually want to hear. This conversation will change how you think about every yes that you give, every favor that you request, and every difficult thing that you hesitate to say. This is the XX Lab. I'm Dr. Sarah Hill. Let's get started. Doctor Vanessa Bonds, welcome to the XX Lab. speaker-1: Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here. speaker-0: Yeah, I'm so excited to talk to you. And as we talked about off camera, I first became familiar with your work when on a review panel for some of the research that you are conducting on compliance. And so before we even get started, maybe you can tell us what is compliance? speaker-1: So compliance ultimately is just behavioral agreement. And so one of the things that I've been super interested in is the difference between compliance when we go along with something and agree to do something and genuine consent when we feel like we truly had a choice to say no in the moment and we truly knew what we were getting into essentially. And so yeah, compliance is like I got someone to do something or I went along with something, but Often you kinda want more than that. You want someone to truly consent and give a genuine yes. speaker-0: Right. And it's funny because like on the surface, when you talk about the distinction between those two things, it doesn't seem like something that really matters for our everyday life. It's like, okay, yeah, whatever that sounds like, you know, egghead academic speak for something that actually doesn't affect my life. But it actually plays a really important role in our lives. And most of the listeners to this podcast are women. And I think that we end up in the camp of people who've agreed to do things that we didn't really want to do more often than men. And so You know, I think as you're listening to this, you know, think about the times that you have said yes to things, like whether it's your boss asking you to be on a committee that you don't want to be on, somebody asks you on a date or a second date and you don't want to go on it, but you say yes anyway, or somebody, the room mom in the group chat is asking you if you'll bake homemade chocolate chip cookies for the XYZ event and you really are exhausted and way too many things on your plate, but you agree to do it anyway. This is all what Vanessa's work studies is looking at why we say yes when really we would prefer to say no. So what is actually happening in that moment? I get the text message from the group chat saying, Will you bake homemade chocolate chip cookies tonight to bring to this event tomorrow? And I've got a really long to-do list of things I need to do tonight. I'm completely exhausted. And I say yes to it anyway. Why am I doing that? speaker-1: Yeah, it's, you know, it's so funny because I people throw around these phrases like no is a complete sentence, and this idea that like no is such a simple thing to say, but it is so complicated. And in the moment of being asked for something, so many things are going through our heads, whether, you know, explicitly or implicitly, there's this worry that. If I say no, you know, that I'm gonna look like a bad or ungenerous or, you know, not giving person that I'm gonna offend this other person who's asking me that I'm gonna damage the relationship in some way. And relationships are based on this kind of mutual reciprocity. And so in the moment, all those things are kind of the backdrop to what turns into just like a proximal emotion of awkwardness, guilt, this, you know, just Intense emotional experience that makes it really, really difficult to say no. And so it's hard to, you know, find the words to let someone down easily and to sort of communicate all that stuff, like it's not you, it's not me, it's not us. I hope you're not Matt, you know, all those things that are kind of in the background of this intense moment. And so it's often just easier to comply, to just go along and say yes, because to come up with the perfect answer and to not beat ourselves up over it. you know, for days to come, is is just harder. speaker-0: So does it create like a form of cognitive load almost to say no because we're having to manage all of these, you know, thoughts that we have, these like thought gremlins that are telling us that we're gonna be perceived as unlikable and like not a good friend or not a good parent or not a good employee? Is that is it that that creates the sort of overwhelming feeling? And then it's just easier to say yes and forget it. speaker-1: think that's possible. I mean, if you think about, yeah, even just the like behavioral response of yes is like in the moment, right? Then the yes you have to follow through on and do whatever you agreed to. But in the moment, yes is just yes. But no comes with all these excuses and this extra, like you said, like cognitive load, you have to figure out how you're gonna let this person down. And so it it it does wind up just being easier. And so one of the things we have been looking at in our studies is if you give people more time, like If you give someone a heads up before you ask for something and say, I'm gonna come ask you for this, that gives them time to process so that if they agree, it can be more genuine. And if they're gonna say no, like they can actually find the words to say no because they had time to think about it and decide what they were comfortable with and come up with an excuse they feel okay about. speaker-0: It almost feels like saying yes is all more impulsive. You're not able to delay gratification. And so you just want to get rid of the aversive stimulus and right. And so you're like, yes. speaker-1: Yeah, so that's I often refer to it as our default. So we when we ask people for things, we have this tendency to assume that other people's default is no and that we're always trying to get past no. But in fact, people's default is more often yes. And it's harder to like actually say no. And we forget that, you know, on the side when we're the ones being asked, of course, that means that we have to take a pause and figure out like how to say no and it's more effortful. But then There's also the flip side of when we're asking, we forget that people other people's defaults is also to say yes. And it's actually hard for them to come up with the words to say no to us when we ask for something. speaker-0: Yeah, and I think a lot of people are afraid to ask for the things that they want, or even if they need help, because they're so afraid of people saying no and assuming that the answer is going to be no. And a sort of an underestimation of compliance effect, I believe is what you all call that. Why do we have this bias in the way that we perceive how other people are going to respond to our requests? speaker-1: So in our work, we do show that part of the bias is this underestimation of how hard it is to say no, that we're acutely aware of it when we're the ones being asked, but then we forget that other people feel that way too when we're asking them. We're usually so much more focused on our own anxieties, like what if they reject me? What if I don't get this help I need? How am I gonna ask them in a way that, you know, makes me look okay? And so we're we're in our own heads and we forget what it's like in their head. I will add that there is other research showing that people also underestimate how happy other people are to help in lots of contexts. A lot of my focus is on the pressure we put on other people when we ask for things and how we don't realize that aspect. But people also, once they do help, they feel pretty good about it. They convince themselves, you know, that they're like a good person for having helped. So it's not, I I tend to kind of have two approaches to giving advice about asking for things where, you know, asking is great. People will say yes more than you think. You should ask, but you should also recognize that asking itself is not neutral. It does put pressure on other people. And so I often like to give that sort of caveat so that When people do ask, they set themselves up for a yes ideally, but they also give the other person like autonomy to say no in that moment. speaker-0: Right. And one of the things that you had mentioned earlier was just this idea that if you give somebody a heads up that you're going to be asking about something, that it gives them an opportunity to actually think through it where they can give you a genuine response instead of just the impulse yes. And this is something that, you know, like salespeople use against us, right? The worst is the gym. Like if you've ever go gone to like join a gym. Or you try to quit the gym, it's almost impossible because they put all this pressure on you to either sign up for the gym or not leave the gym. Right. Like the last time I went in to try to quit the gym, I ended up signing up for additional, additional classes. You know, it's like it did the exact opposite of what I wanted it to. And even though I recognize that there's a lot of compliance techniques that were that were sort of being used against me to try to get me to say yes, I think that. Recognizing some of these can be really helpful to us when we're in the context like the car dealership or at the gym. And what are some of the like the different types of techniques that folks use who essentially are trained in how to get us to say yes to things that we don't really want to say yes to? What are some of the other things that people can look out for? when they can tell that they're being played. So that way they can spend a little bit of time thinking, Can I get out of this situation without saying yes? Because that's what this person is trying to get me to do. speaker-1: So I I teach Cialdini's principles of persuasion in my class. And so a lot of them are are things that he's documented. And I always give the caveat though that we have to give people who fall prey to these things grace because even knowing about them, like I teach this and it is still really, really hard to overcome it in the moment. And so some things he talks about are like reciprocity, right? You give someone a free sample, you seem like you're you're making some sort of concession. So the other person feels like they need to make a concession in return. And so I I always use the example of like imagine going into like an ice cream, you know, bar and tasting a bunch of samples and then just walking out. Most of us have just this gut reaction that it would feel so bad, right? We would just feel guilty. And so that's just it, we're just wired to want to reciprocate. And so if it feels like someone's like keeps, you know, giving you little like, Prizes somehow that doesn't feel quite right. They could be trying to get you to feel like you need to reciprocate in kind. speaker-0: If ever go to a store where the person has like go in the back and get the different sized shoes for you, I think that's doing the same thing too. When I go into one of those stores and if they brought out different types of shoes, it's it feels really bad. Like it makes me feel guilty if I leave the store without buying anything. And I think they do that on purpose too. speaker-1: Yeah. And that's partly escalation of commitment, right? You've like put this time in that you've had them put this time in and now you feel really guilty having their time being wasted. Yeah. But I I I do think that when you kind of go into these situations telling yourself, like, I I'm only going to make a decision, like either if it's like a car dealership, I'm not gonna make a decision today. So you get don't get sort of caught in that and you have the time to think. Having someone else to consult with is really helpful, just being like, I'm always gonna just use someone else as an excuse. Even with the, you know, the shoe person, you feel really bad, but you could say, like, I just I can't buy anything unless I get approval from my sister. Right. And then it's like, okay, you you can kind of get out of that and kind of break the cycle of feeling like, I I feel obligated to go forward and actually buy something in this situation. speaker-0: Yeah, and I think it's helpful also to remember in that type of a context that they they're there anyway. They're getting paid the same. I mean, they have to be there. And that is, you know, they'd either be standing around or fetching you shoes. And so if you don't like the shoes, then you don't have to buy them. speaker-1: I just find it so striking that we even have to make these excuses and convince ourselves that we don't have to buy something or can leave that situation because the emotion is so strong, the guilt is so strong, the awkwardness. And it's, you know, from the outside, we often underestimate how powerful those emotions can really be. speaker-0: Yeah. And so like encouraging people to act act fast or escalating commitment or giving like a small gift or like samples. Those are some frequently used compliance techniques. What is one or two others that that are frequently used that that we can tell listeners about so that way they know what to look out for in the world of people trying to get them to say yes when they really want to say no? speaker-1: Another one is authority. So giving any kind of sort of idea that they have more authority in some way. So the classic one is going to a makeup counter and they're wearing like doctors' lab coats, it's like you're not a doctor. But it makes it it sort of makes it seem like these people must be really knowledgeable, right? And so just being aware that like that is there to sort of manipulate your impression of of how much this person actually knows. Another one is social norms. So pointing to what other people are doing. So if someone's saying like, that person just left and they bought this, you know, people keep buying this, they're trying to tell you like, okay, other people are are doing it. And so you should do it this too, or you should buy this too. And that is a very powerful technique. speaker-0: Is that also why people pad the tip jar if they work at Starbucks or they work somewhere else where they put a couple of bucks in the tip jar to give the impression that other people who visit this establishment provide a tip and therefore you should also do it too? speaker-1: Yeah, that's the exact example I give to my students. That shows people that, I guess people tip here. Unfortunately now with like the iPads they don't they don't have that anymore. But now it's like you you know, that comes to you and you feel like you can't you're a jerk if you like click no tip. So I think it's still working just as well. speaker-0: Right. Yeah. And they always have as the default something like a twenty-five percent tip. And it's like, and and then if you even move it from the twenty-five percent, it makes you feel like a jerk because you're assuming that that's the default, which again is playing to this idea of social norms. Like, well, the the social norm here is to tip twenty-five percent. And therefore, if you do less than that, that you're a cheapskate or that you're not nice, or that yeah, that you're a rude customer. And so I think that, you know, there are so many contexts in life where we're presented with a situation where essentially we're being asked to do something or not do something, or give a yes or give a no. And, you know, you've studied this for more than 15 years now. And I'm just like really curious about like what's happening to us when somebody is making a direct request of us. So I'm asking you, you know, Vanessa, will you pick up my kids after school today? Even though that will be really difficult for you because you don't even live in Texas. I'm just kind of curious about like that moment when we're given the request, what's happening? speaker-1: I think a lot of people will talk about like an evolutionary explanation for why it's so hard to say no if we're looking at sort of like a really distal explanation. And ultimately, you know, just like being rejected from the group is really difficult and is the signal that, you know, you're being kind of pushed out of the group, which evolutionarily we we're wired to want to be part of the group and not be sort of excommunicated in that way. Rejecting another person is just another way. To push away from the group, right? And to separate yourself from the group. And so there are these sort of evolutionary explanations for why we don't want to be rejected or reject other people. But then the way that those explanations wind up being wired in our bodies is through these emotions. And so these emotions are telling us: like, don't, you know, push this person away. The guilt we feel, the awkwardness we feel, the anxiety we feel. It's our body basically saying, this could be dangerous and and impact your standing in the group. You know, whether or not that's actually true, and there's also research showing that we tend to exaggerate how negatively people are going to perceive our nos. And so it could just be like a an overreaction on the part of our emotional system, but that does seem to kick in in that moment. speaker-0: There's all tons of research looking at the evolutionary advantages of having group members. And then, of course, the huge costs of being sort of thrown outside your group. When I say no to somebody's requests, yeah, I think it's it's almost like fear, right? Like I'm afraid that I'm going to be perceived as a non-cooperator. That would be a reason to be thrown outside of a group. This person isn't a helper. And those people tend to get. Cut out of groups. And, you know, and I think that that has to have something to do with the fact that we overestimate the probability that other people will say no to our requests. You can lose group membership in one of two ways, right? You can be a non cooperator by saying no when people ask you to do things, but then also by asking other people to do things and putting them in that position of having to say no to you. I think that that also probably isn't. good for group membership, right? Is there any research on how we perceive askers? speaker-1: So I think in general, most of it is more based on these sort of one-shot requests. And so, you know, the the general finding tends to be that we perceive askers more positively than they think we will. And so, like, you know, being asked for advice makes us feel like, this person like thinks I'm smart and wants my advice. You know, being asked to help is like, this person trusts me and you know, I get to feel like a good person for helping them. And so and these one off asks, it seems like actually makes you perceived more positively even than being asked. But I think your question is interesting because it suggests, you know, there's also work on like balance in relationships. And so some it doesn't have to be like one to one. And I think we we think that's too much the case. And when in fact it's not like as soon as someone does something for you, you have to immediately reciprocate because then it can become really exchange like. But If it gets really imbalanced and you become the person who's constantly, you know, taking advantage or free riding, because that's the other thing that gets you pushed out of a group or is free riding, if you're not contributing, you know, to some extent, then I think and you're just always asking other people, then I think you you could have that effect for sure. speaker-0: circle back to something that we talked about at the very beginning of the conversation where you talked about the difference between compliance and consent. I want you to explain to us like what are the differences between these two things because I think that the difference is actually sort of a finer line than most people realize. speaker-1: Yeah, so compliance is just a behavior. So it's the observable behavior. And I think part of the reason that it's hard sometimes for outside observers to understand whether we're complying or consenting is that they don't have access to what's going on in our heads. All they have is the behavior. And if you behave in like an affirmative way and you go along with something, you may just be complying, but they don't know that. And so they're gonna wonder if actually you're consenting. And a lot of my research shows that we overestimate how much other people are consenting to our request, to other people's requests. Consents ultimately requires that you feel like you could have actually said no in the moment. And that's more than just, you know, someone told you you could say no. It's like I actually felt like I could. Because there's plenty of times, you know, someone says, You can totally say no, and you're like, I I really feel like I can't say no in this situation. It's also about being informed. Like I actually know what it is you're asking me to do. And you're not like gonna sort of throw something else at me down the road. And that as well, you know, in the moment, someone can tell you something, but you don't fully understand what you're really getting into until you're in it. And so that can feel like, you know, I said yes, but I really didn't realize what I signed up for. speaker-0: Right. I think that a lot of us find ourselves in that situation where we didn't know what we signed up for. And I think that sometimes, especially when somebody knows exactly what they're doing when they're asking us to do something and they're doing it in a manipulative way to get us to agree to something that we wouldn't normally agree to, that they'll oftentimes reveal the hidden costs of helping later on. Right. Like, so will you drive me to the airport? Sure. Okay, it's at 3 a.m. And I actually mean the airport that's two hours away. So, you know, sorry about that. Your research and and our conversation suggests that one of the things that we can do is make sure that we're just really transparent about the full set of costs of the behavior. But what are some other things that we can do? Like if we're trying to ask somebody for something and we want to make it clear that there's no pressure, because as you noted, we can say that all day long. no pressure, don't worry about it. You can totally say no. But we know what that really means, right? That means that it's just gonna take us longer to say yes because we feel like we have to. What are other things that we can do to make sure that when we ask somebody that they're actually providing us true consent instead of just doing what we want even though they don't want to? speaker-1: Yeah, so we actually have some studies looking at when people say you can say no versus giving a person a way to say no. So you give them the actual words that they can use to say no to your request. So we in our studies will put people in these situations where they're being asked to do things they really don't want to do, unlock their phones and let the let the researcher basically root around in them. And We have these two scripts we've tested out, where in one case we say, you know, will you please unlock your phone that we need to look around in it for the study? And they say, You may say no if you wish. In the other one, we say, if you would like to say no, just say, and we give them an actual script. You know, one of the things we talked about is it's often hard to find the words to say no in the moment, right? We're trying to say so many things, like. I'm really a helpful person, you know. I'm not blaming you for asking. There's so many things that we're trying to accomplish with the words to say no. But if you give someone basically like we would call it the safe word study, it's almost like you're giving someone a safe word, like just say this if you actually want to say no, but you can't find the words. And so I've been doing this with my graduate students. When I have a project idea for my graduate students, I don't want them to just say yes to me. Often they feel like they should, because I'll be like, I had this idea, you know, it would really fit with your work. Do you want to take it on? And they feel like, you know, what are they going to say? Like, no, I and they're they're worried about coming across as lazy or not cooperative or whatever. And so what I try to do is I set myself up for a yes using all the things that we've studied get more yeses. I bring them in in person. I ask them. I explain it to them in person. And then I tell them, take some time to think about it. And then send me an email and let me know what you think. If you decide you have too much on your plate, that's totally fine. Just tell me that. So I've told them like I will accept this answer as a no. I've given them time and space to actually think because I don't want them to make the decision right in the moment on the spot. And the other thing is it's a lot easier to say no to someone when you're not saying it to their face. And so actually being able to write out an email where you feel good about what you're saying is is an another way to give people more autonomy to say no. speaker-0: And what you find is that to start with, just to orient listeners to this, you find that most people say yes to this, right? Which is something I think nobody would really predict, except that it's really hard for us to say no. And in a lot of ways, I feel like that can feel really validating because I think that a lot of times people feel that it's very hard to say no and they underestimate for themselves how difficult that is and like how emotionally bad it feels to say no. I wonder whether. Like having the script almost like creates like a belief about the norms of the situation, where it leads the person to perceive that one norm in this context is to say no. People tend to assume, unless it's unless they're going to be asking for something, in which case they assume that the norm is no, but they assume that the norm for themselves is yes, right? And that people expect that they're going to say yes, or else they're a terrible person. And so I wonder whether providing that also like creates this perception that no is an appropriate response in this context. speaker-1: Yeah, I think that's possible. I I think it also just makes it like a real option. I think to some extent, and until you have like it's almost like having the button to press, you know, it's like if I can't come up with the words, you're telling me I can say no, but like I don't know how exactly to do that in this moment. But feeling like, okay, now this is a real option because you gave me like the secret word, the secret button. so now I feel like I can really choose. And the the interesting thing is that we don't find a big difference in compliance. But when we ask people after the fact, like, do you feel like you really could have said no? Do you feel like you voluntarily agreed? Then we get the difference. And people who are given the words to say no feel like, wait, I I do feel like that was a more voluntary decision. speaker-0: The things that you talked about, and this is a context that I think everybody is familiar with is the situation with the boss or the supervisor or the PhD mentor who's asking for you to do something as a subordinate. So somebody who's of a different status. and that can feel really hard to say no. And so I'm wondering if you can orient listeners to what it is that makes requests from somebody who's got a higher status than yourself. or somebody who has power over you, what makes that special when it comes to compliance? speaker-1: Yeah, I mean, when someone has power over you, it goes from being just a sort of a social pressure where I don't want to let this person down. I don't want, you know, this person to think, you know, less of me as an individual and a kind individual. There is also this instrumental piece when someone actually has power over you. So now you're really worried about whether you're gonna per be perceived as competent and hardworking. This person actually, you know, has power over your outcomes. And so if they're not happy with your decision, you you see actual tangible potential consequences. And so, you know, we talked about all the ways in which you can kind of say no to like friends, family, strangers by, you know, buying yourself time. I think that works also in this context, but and coming up with ways to basically say, like, I'm still a good person, you know, I care about you. With a boss, you also want to say something that indicates, and I'm also a good worker and I'm competent. And so one thing that a lot of people have sort of suggested that I think is a is great advice is having a list of all the things you're working on so that you can point to, you know, I have this list of things. I know you're asking me to do this. I would love to help out. Is there something on this list you think that I could take off to make time to be able to do that? And so then you're still, you know, you're being flexible, but you're also showing that like if if you're gonna say no or if this doesn't work out, it's not because you're lazy or not hardworking, it's because you have so much on your plate. speaker-0: So if the big fear with your boss asking you to do something and you want to say no is ultimately that they could punish you, right? Or they could not directly punish you, but sort of indirectly punish you by perceiving you as lazy and not necessarily a great worker, that one of the better ways to deal with that might be to provide them alternative explanations, right? And to be able to provide evidence that that's not the case at the same time that you deliver your no. speaker-1: Yeah. And let them, you know, because every time you say yes to something, you're saying you're you have to say no to something else, right? Because there's limited time, we have limited energy. And so to some extent, you're like giving them the chance to say no for you. So maybe they're they do look at your list or, you know, you mention a couple of things and say, actually that's not that important. It's like, okay, so you're giving me permission basically to say no to something else so that I can say yes to this thing. speaker-0: One other question I often hear from people, in addition to being asked about how to say no to their boss or their supervisor, is how to politely say no to a request for a date? Because a lot of people will find themselves in the context where they are on a first date and they are thinking this is a really nice person, really great on paper. I don't sense chemistry here. How do I say no to a date? Or to a second date with somebody who's a really nice person and I don't want to hurt their feelings. speaker-1: Yeah, this is this is so tricky. And it's tricky for so many reasons because a romantic context is just so ego relevant. So, you know, saying no to someone, it's really it can be really hurtful. And I think we take that on. We don't want to hurt somebody's feelings. And in fact, there's research showing that we will accept like second dates and even first dates because we don't want to hurt someone's feelings. So just Purely because that is so painful. The other piece that's worth acknowledging, right, is that because it is very ego relevant, you know, there is also a risk of aggression. Like that is a real thing that people worry about if they reject someone who's romantically interested in them. And so I think in these cases, sometimes the best thing to do, and I think there is some research showing that that, you know, people feel more comfortable saying no or rejecting someone over text or over email. In many cases I think it makes sense to say no over like when you have a little bit of distance so that you can actually kind of think about your words, let the person down easily, give yourself some distance if there is any kind of hint of worry about, you know, some sort of aggression. It also kind of allows the other person a chance to save face. They don't have to look right at you. And I I feel like I do hesitate with, you know, giving advice like this. And I I can't say that, you know I have really strong research to support it. So I feel like I want to take this with a grain of salt. But I you know, if it's nice to let people down to their faces. I think if you have a long standing relationship, of course that makes more sense. It's not like the Carrie Sex in the City, like being broken up with a on a post-it note. Like that doesn't seem right. But when it's like a first or second date, I think that's it it is actually more appropriate that you could you could text or email. speaker-0: And I've had friends who actually have gone on multiple dates because they felt like they needed to say, I don't want to go out with you again in person. And then they get out in the context and then they can't do it. And so my advice has always been like it's far more polite to send a text after the first date saying, You're a really great person. I so enjoyed our time together. I just don't see this working. And doing that over text after one date rather than this long protracted, you know, series of dates because you can't quite get yourself to say the terrible things. When we are going through life, right, and being asked to do something and it's something that we really our knee-jerk reaction is, I really don't want to do this. What do we need to do to create the space to be able to give the answer that we want? speaker-1: Yeah, I think, you know, this is something actually I talk about quite a bit in my new book is this idea that we often see these decisions as either or. It's like I say yes or no in the moment, when in fact there's often additional, you know, possibilities. And so one is just saying, you know, I need to think about that for a minute. So anytime you can buy yourself some time and get yourself space and say like, You know, I'm definitely interested, but let me think about it and I'll get back to you. I need to check with another person before I can commit anything that kind of gets you out of the immediate situation. So again, this, you know, the immediate situation is so emotional. And we have this what's called a hot, cold empathy gap where, you know, when we're out of the emotional situation, we forget how intense it can be when we're actually in it, right? And so we really just need to get Out of that hot emotional context and get into a cooler mindset and actually be able to sort of make a better decision with a little distance. speaker-0: I do like the idea of creating the distance. And one of the things that I was thinking about as you were talking was whether it might be useful to sort of identify the story that we're telling ourselves. Because I think that sometimes, you know, when we're afraid to say no, it's because our brain starts weaving a narrative about what that means and the way it's going to be perceived. And whether identifying that, like they're going to think that I'm a lazy worker or They're going to think I'm a bad friend. And then coming up with, you know, as part of the no, as you noted with the boss, you know, housing your no in evidence to the contrary to help address that concern. Or even just like telling yourself, like if you think, you know, my boss is going to think I'm a lazy worker, is like coming up with five counter, you know, factual facts to that. story. Like, no, actually I was up until midnight last night working on that project and my boss knows that and I've been doing this and and whether it might be useful to for us to identify the narrative, right? And then create counterfactuals, either just to, you know, soothe our own self-image, like to say, I'm really not a bad person. I'm really not a bad friend. I'm really not a bad employee. Or even include some of that information as you had suggested with the boss in that no. And speaker-1: Another one too is to imagine what you would advise a friend. That works really well in a lot of contexts because a lot of us can give our friends much better advice than we give ourselves. And so yeah, what would you tell your friend in this situation? speaker-0: Question that I've got b on com on yesing before we switch to talking about your new book, which I'm really excited to talk to you about, is just about the different types of motivations behind our yeses. I have found in my own life, and I think this is true for everyone, that sometimes I comply with things or give a yes when I really don't want to do it for a lot of different reasons. So just to give an example, I might say yes to the you know cashier who asked me to. Round up five dollars on my and I'm doing that because I don't want to look like right. And so that's like it's about kind of like self-image management. But then with the boss, you know, we have I I don't want to look like I'm lazy. And I guess that's still about self-image, but it feels like there could be like status protection motivations, there could be friendship maintenance motivations. And I began to think about the fact that there's a lot of times where we say yes and essentially the behavior is the same, right? It's compliance. We're saying yes, we really mean no, but that it actually serves a lot of different functions. Am I right? That we use it for a lot of different purposes. speaker-1: Yeah, for sure. I mean, the way I I usually think about it is we're thinking about how we'll look, how it'll impact the other person and how it'll impact the relationship. And so depending on the particular situation, like exactly what's being asked or who's asking, it might, you know, trigger different things there. You know, it might be like competence concerns and how I'm gonna look. It might be reputational concerns about how helpful I'll look. It might be that I feel like you know, this is a really close relationship and that if I don't help this person out, it's gonna damage it. But I definitely think it's, you know, often I feel like in in research we try so hard to narrow mechanisms down to this one specific thing. And I absolutely think that it's it's so complicated and we have so many things going on when we when we agree to things when we don't necessarily want to. So speaker-0: I want to talk to you about your new book. So you have a new book called Should I Say Something? The Science of What to Share and What to Keep to Yourself. And I wanna know what made you realize that this was the next book that you wanted to write. speaker-1: Yeah, so my first book and my research is on the impact we have in other people that we don't always see. And so a a natural follow up from that book was like if we have this impact, and one of the things I argue in that book is that sometimes that impact is more positive than we expect, sometimes it's more negative than we expect. And because of that, we want to be sort of careful about when we use our influence and when we don't. The big sort of, I guess, cliffhanger. I left with that book was a okay, so then when should you say things and when shouldn't you? And so this book is kind of a answering that question. Can you speaker-0: give listeners sort of a hint at what some of the things are that they might learn about in your book. speaker-1: Yeah, sure. So each chapter is around a different kind of dilemma. So it's like, should I be honest? So like if somebody if I see that someone's doing something wrong or has something in their teeth or whatever it might be, like, should I tell them? Another chapter is on whether we should share our successes, another is on whether we should share our failures and vulnerabilities, another is on whether to apologize, and another is on whether to ask. so it deals with a lot of things we've been talking about, you know, asking in cases where, you know, you actually want to get tangible help versus asking in situations where you're kind of putting pressure on another person or asking them overly personal questions. And so basically the sort of th I general framework I I think about when I think about the book is that when we're sh deciding whether to say something, and this is very similar to things we've been talking about with asking. When we're deciding whether to say something, we're what we're really trying to do is trying to predict how saying something is going to impact the other person that I'm saying it to, how it's gonna impact how they think about me and perceive me, and then how it's gonna impact the actual goal I have in that interaction. And what the research shows is that we're wrong about a lot of those, those things. speaker-0: And so is it helping to correct our misperceptions about how we perceive other people's beliefs about what we say or the way that they see us based on the things that we tell them? speaker-1: Yeah, that's part of it. So it's giving sort of a step-by-step guide. So like you're trying to decide whether to tell someone something. You know, what it what are you worried about? Are you worried about how it's going to impact them? So for example, there's some research showing that if we see someone with like stuff on their face, so these researchers took these research assistants, these poor research assistants, and put like globs of lipstick or globs of chocolate on their face. And they had them go up to people and ask them to be in a research survey. And then after they agreed to participate, they filled out this survey. And on the survey, there were questions about like, you know, did you mention that this person had something on their face? And then a bunch of questions about the individual. And what they found was that most the I think it was like only four out of a hundred and fifty participants wound up saying anything. to this person about this thing they had in their face. But of course, if you were walking around with something on your face, you would desperately want someone to tell you. And so they have some follow-up studies looking at how we we underestimate how much other people really want honest feedback about, you know, whatever it is, if they're they have a bad habit that's annoying people or, you know, something as obvious as like something in their face. speaker-0: When somebody receives feedback like that, so if somebody tells me I have something in my teeth or somebody tells me that, you know, I have offensive body odor or something, whatever it is, I would imagine I would feel I wouldn't feel very much warmth toward the person who said it. I'd be glad that somebody told me, but I feel like it would have the counter effect of also then making me kind of not like the other person, even though I'm glad that they told me. Is there any sort of backlash that people get? From being the bearer of bad news, even though you're appreciative of the bad news, does it have a negative impact on our interactions with others? speaker-1: Yeah. So this is one of the the sort of questions or the steps I give is taking a long term approach. So like in the moment, guess that's gonna be an awkward interaction because that person's gonna be like, my God, and you're gonna be feel kind of weird about it. But in the long term, they're gonna be glad that they could actually fix the problem, right? And then that warmth kind of comes back. And so we often make these decisions based on that initial momentary pang of awkwardness. and we decide we wanna avoid that when actually in the long term. This person not hearing this is actually much less kind than just going ahead and kind of ripping off the band aid and telling them. speaker-0: Yeah, in in writing the book, was there were there any particular sets of findings that were particularly surprising to you where you thought, that really fundamentally changes the way that I think about interactions with human beings? speaker-1: I mean, so I have one chapter on when to say I love you. And this is I love you to other people. It's also in your job and in negotiation contexts. And so I this I don't know why this comes to mind. I think it's just because I love animals, but there was a really cool study of zookeepers where they looked at these zookeepers and they talked to them about their job. And these zookeepers described their job as a calling and You know, they treated the animals like their children and they would do all sorts of things for the animals, including like, you know, stay with them during a hurricane. And so you've got these people who see their job as a calling and a passion. And yet they would not tell their bosses about this because they knew that if their bosses knew how much they actually loved their job and were passionate about their jobs, that they would wind up exploiting them. And so it was this interesting sort of tension between, you know, it's good to love our jobs, but other people don't always value the work we're doing as much when we love our jobs. It's like they see that as value in itself, like it's sort of additional payment. And so you can work longer hours and you can get paid less because you love your job. And so it's kind of balancing like who you're telling you love your job to. speaker-0: And as soon as you said that, I thought, yeah, no, I would totally keep that information to myself for the same reasons, because it's like you think that that when somebody's adding up, like, okay, so to what extent is this person being rewarded for their job that they do here? That if you find out that they really like it, that that means that they should get paid less, for example, or have more work assignments that they do because they really love it. And that obviously wouldn't be fair. And you had said earlier in our conversation that one of the reasons that you wrote this book is because people tend to underestimate the extent to which the things that they say impact other people. And I'm wondering if you could just like circle on that point a little bit. Like, because I I know that people tend to overestimate the, you know, extent to which they're good at things, right? Which is the better than average effect. Right. So if you ask me how good of a driver I am or how good I am at folding paper airplanes, that I'll just A guess that I'm probably at least better than average. And we tend to have the bias where we tend to think that we have more control or more agency over outcomes in the world, right? Which so we have the illusion of control where we assume that we have more agency in the world than we do. But we tend to underestimate the extent to which the things that we say influence other people. And my reading of the literature also suggests that we underestimate the extent to which, you know, it after we have an exchange with another person that they even like us. Like what does the research actually show about these types of biases and then how they shape our behavior and the way that we communicate with others? speaker-1: Yeah, so as you said, you know, there's a long-standing history of overconfidence in a lot of different domains. So we think we're better drivers than average, and we think that we're gonna be better at various tasks. And what's interesting is when we're trying to guess, you know, the impact that we have on another person. Instead of sort of comparing that to some objective standard, we have to kind of figure out what's happening inside their brain, a place that we can't actually get. So we have to make this guess about their impression of us. And it turns out that we tend to be wrong when we're trying to guess and we focus more on The negative times, like the times we were rejected, you know, the the stupid thing that we said that we're sure that somebody else is focusing on, even though they're not, you know, remembering it as much as we are. And so we focus on all this negative information. And so we wind up assuming that we actually had less of an impact on the other person, that they liked us less than they actually report having liked us. And so these days, now that a bunch of people have been looking at this in the social domain. It does seem to be that there's this flip in the, you know, more like instrumental domain. We have this overconfidence effect that's really documented and robust. And then in social domains, we underestimate whether people will do things for us, how much they you know, think about things we talked about after the fact, how much they notice us and how much they like us after an interaction. speaker-0: And how much does this influence like what we share and what we don't share? Right. And and your new book is really getting at this issue of like, do I tell them the thing or do I not tell them the thing? Like, how much does that bias tend to shape the way that we interact with others? speaker-1: Yeah, I think sometimes we hold back from saying things because we assume that it's not really gonna have the impact that we think or that we'd like it to have. We just assume no one's gonna listen to it and we so we don't even bother speaking up. Another thing that can happen is actually if we underestimate how likely it is someone's gonna listen to something we have to say, we can come across overly aggressive. You know, we started talking about this this idea that we assume other people are gonna default to know. And so if we feel like we're constantly getting past no and that no one's listening to us and so we have to kind of turn up the volume, we can actually come in like a little bit too guns ablazing to overcompensate for this perception that no one's actually gonna listen to us or care what we have to say. And so, you know, it's just it it kind of messes up our calibration when it if you assume like no people are gonna listen and chances are they're gonna agree with me and go along because that's like a social norm, is like not to just angrily argue back at somebody, you can come in with at the like the right tone, right? I'm not too aggressive. I'm not too meek. I'm actually saying something. And that's actually the sweet spot for people actually listening to you. speaker-0: I think that's sounds like a really great set of lessons. And you've got this in your new book. Should I say something? The science of what to share and what to keep to yourself. And where can listeners learn more about you and your research and find both of your books? speaker-1: Yeah, so on my website I I have everything research books VanessaBonds dot com. I'm also on Instagram at Prof. Bonds and LinkedIn and most of the socials. speaker-0: Awesome. And where can they find your books? speaker-1: Anywhere. Barnes and Noble, Amazon, anywhere. speaker-0: All right. Excellent. All right. Dr. Vanessa Bonds, thank you so much for coming on the XX Lab. And everyone should check out Should I Say Something? Because I think all of us have found ourselves asking that question, at least at some point in our lives, probably some of us more than others, including me. And so very much thank you for your time today and thank you for the work that you do. speaker-1: Thank you so much for having me.