There's a measured psychopathy I guess you could say embedded in the human brain.

Right, you need to disengage sometimes when it's important for your survival.

But you know, nowadays, I think that these systems are being taken advantage of.

I think and we're really starting to see this disengagement from people who really should stay in our good graces.

I think that I see a lot of this in families.

You know, it's heartbreaking to see, you know, families fracture because they disagree politically.

You know, and I hate to talk about politics too because it's controversial and people get upset about it.

But you know, it's reality, and I'm not here to preach anything but to just share the neuroscience on it that like, this is a real significant phenomenon that's affecting our country and affecting our brains.

Hello and welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we explore the depths of human potential.

Today, we have been Ryan on the show.

Doctor Ryan is a neuroscientist at Stanford University and a renowned science communicator.

Doctor Ryan has spent over a decade studying the neuroscience of social and interactions and has written a book on the topic called why Brains Need Friends The Neuroscience of Social Connection.

In addition to being a researcher, Doctor Ryan also has a popular Instagram page where he makes scientific findings accessible and interesting.

In this episode, we discuss why humans need social interaction, why we are becoming more isolated, and how social interaction affects the mind and brain.

We also discuss the neurobiology of empathy and whether it's possible to become more empathetic.

I found this episode really honest and also hopeful.

I've been following Ben on Instagram for a while now, and I really appreciate the care he takes in being scientifically informed and conveying the information in an accessible manner, so that further ado I bring you Doctor Ben Ryan.

Doctor Ryan, so great to have you on the Psychology Podcast.

Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

It's a pleasure to be here and great to meet you.

Yeah.

I'm a long time admirer of your work on Instagram.

Likewise, that's why it's exciting to be here.

Yeah.

Yeah, you do a really great service for public science communication and you're also a scientist.

Can you talk a little about your research actually and where you're at and yeah.

Yeah, sure.

So I've always been interested in social interaction, and luckily I've found my space in science.

First of my PhD studying the neurobiology of autism, and then my postdoc working at Stanford, I got to study the neurobiology of empathy and specifically how MDMA, the drug ecstasy, enhances empathy in the brain.

So that was a whole lot of fun.

And ever since I wrapped up my postdoc, I've been doing some teaching.

I'm an adjunct at Stanford.

I teach a class on science communication.

Also planning to get some things going elsewhere at other universities, trying to get science communication built into graduate level coursework.

I think all scientists should have some level of training and how to not just do great research, but explain that research to the public, because that part is lacking, and I think, you know, it benefits science, it benefits society, benefits everybody if scientists can speak clearly.

So want to get more of that going.

I really agree, obviously, And I also think that the science of social connection, like understanding that can also help you understand how to be a better science communicator on social networks.

You know, when you're you're not just talking science.

You're trying to resonate in some way with another human, which is what you often do when you try to make friends.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's funny because I've thought a little bit about that.

Someone once told me, because like I said, I study empathy.

And you know, I'm not one to claim to say, oh I'm an empathic or I'm an EmPATH or whatever.

But someone once told me they invited me for a talk and they were like, you know, you're you're a scientist who really embodies what they study.

You're so I can tell you're an empathic person.

Oh it's really interesting, Like I wonder how much of my interest in studying empathy has something to do with you know, it's involvement in my life.

And ever since then, I've been thinking that, you know, empathy is really important for teaching.

In order to help someone understand something, you need to really wrap your head around their mind space and how it differs from yours and fill in those gaps.

And yeah, I guess I try to put that to use on social media when I make my videos.

Yeah, for sure.

And you do you do?

Do you have a new book called Why Brains Need Friends?

The neuroscience of social connection.

Well, first all, congratulations on your first book.

Thank you.

I appreciate milestone in your life personally, I'm sure yeah, well, I'm sure it'll make an impact on the world too.

I hope.

So it's definitely a you know, of course, a huge project.

And it just so happens that the timing of the publication, which is October fourteenth, is also very coincidental with the launch of my first daughter, which is due.

She's due October twenty ninth, So October is going to be a busy month.

I'm expecting a lot of changes in my life.

So yeah, it's been an interesting period of my time.

Okay, double congratulations, thank you, thank you.

Well, what are three hard truths about our social lives?

Let's start there.

Yeah, sure, so all right, we keep hearing that we are becoming more isolated, right, it's that's that's the first heart truth.

You know.

We've heard it on the news, we've heard it in podcasts like this, We heard about the loneliness epidemic, and we need to recognize that we are living in an increasingly fractured society which is obviously bad, or maybe not obviously bad, but it is bad.

And of course the reason for that is multifold.

Right.

We could say it's COVID induced all this isolation and we've never recovered.

We could say social media is isolating us, you know, remote work, whatever you name as the cause, there's no doubt about it.

We are spending less time together.

The data show that, you know, people's lived experiences show that.

And right now, I would actually encourage any listeners to think about five years ago, you know, twenty twenty, before COVID all set in early twenty twenty, how often were you seeing friends, and how does that compare to right now, Because what I believe has happened is that during COVID, we spent a few years in this isolation period and our brain's predictions changed.

We got used to seeing our friends basically never, and so our expectations for how much we how much social contact we should expect, went down.

And I think we've sort of kept some of that with us.

And I think also it's like, you know, I used to go to the gym, but now I do a peloton at home with the people are on a screen.

Or I used to go to the grocery store and talk to the butcher or whatever, and now I just order my groceries on instacart, and there's so many places where interactions have been replaced that I think for most people, if you really dig in and think about it, you'll recognize that this heart truth number one is true that we are an increasingly divided world.

Number two second heart truth is that division is the enemy of brain health.

When it comes to the health and function of your brain, not just your brain, but your body too, social interaction is super, super valuable.

And I'm sure we'll get to the biology of why that is in a little bit.

And then the third hard truth that I want people to understand is that, yes, COVID and remote work and Instacart and all these things may be dividing us, but we also should recognize that our brains have these internal pitfalls, and I don't think these have really reached the you know, modern information ecosystem as much.

You know, the Surgeon General hasn't put out a notice, Hey, you know, we have these evolutionary, built evolutionarily built in pitfalls in our brain that prevent us from connecting with others.

But that is true, and there are many reasons why people often hold back from interaction that are basically built on eight years and years.

I'm talking hundreds of thousands of millions of years of historical precedent of how humans used to interact.

That is totally not accurate anymore.

So those are my three heart truths.

So to summarize in a sentence, not a send as a word, what are the three?

Okay, I can't do it in a word, but I'll do it.

It's number one, we are super isolated.

Number two yeah, yeah, isolation is bad for brain health.

Yeah.

And number three the world is to blame, but we are also internally to blame all of us and not us our decisions, but the way we are.

Built, gotcha.

Yeah.

So you're already picking up them some really really profound themes about human nature.

And it looks like you also take an evolutionary perspective on social psychology and social dynamics, which is which I like.

I like that for sure.

Yeah.

It's true.

Back in the Savannah days, Savannah desert days, I mean, there was real consequences when you're in small bands, real real serious consequences for being shunn from the group.

You know.

I feel like we still feel that way for shunned by a call people on social media.

It's a couple people out of how many billion on the planet.

You know, we take it so like the same kind of thing, you know, take the same kind of feeling, And so does that cause us, you know, just to double click on the pitfalls thing?

Does it the way our brain is wired in that way, as you point out, does it cause us to avoid and to fear the very relationships that would probably contribute to our growth.

Yeah, I mean everybody.

I don't want to say everybody.

There's no absolutes in science or the world.

Most people definitely struggle with fear of projection.

Nobody wants to you know, you go to college, it's your first semester.

You're trying to make friends, and you're like, hey, my roommate seems like a pretty cool person.

Maybe I should befriend them.

And nobody wants to be like, hey, you want to hang out this Friday and get shot down and like just and then you're stuck in this awkward situation you're living with them.

You know.

That's a very particular example.

But similarly, like there are studies now talking about the science our studies where people are invited to interact with strangers, for example, in public settings like on a train or a bus, you know, on a commute.

And these are like, yes, they are scientific studies, but these are real world situations.

It's not like a fake laboratory.

So someone gets on the bus, they're told to go interact with a stranger, have a conversation, see how it makes them feel.

And people predicted that over fifty percent of the time they would get rejected, and across hundreds of trials, zero percent of the time where they rejected the stranger never said no to a conversation.

And that there is one of our internal pitfalls that we expect to be rejected for some reason.

Maybe it's just, you know, maybe it's not so much that we always expect to be rejected as much as it is we don't want to subject ourselves to the risk of being rejected because it's uncomfortable, and so we hold back.

Yeah.

Yes, And is that finding also revealing that people don't say no when they even when they want to say no, because they're trying to be polite.

Is there also we don't know that, I mean they didn't they didn't ask or do interviews.

But I think that would be an interesting additional sort of debriefing.

Yeah, to see what percentage of those who said yes, I would like I'm okay with that actually internally was like no.

Right, yeah, I mean, good question.

I will say this.

In those studies, they did ask the stranger at the end of the conversation, Hey, how how did this experience go for you?

And people said, oh, it made me feel better.

I actually enjoyed the conversation even though I didn't start it.

Someone approached me.

But I feel better now, you know, my mood has improved a little bit.

But yeah, I mean there's there's a variety of ways you could be approached by a stranger on a train, and so I was here a lot of the time.

The impulse might be, oh gosh, what is going on here?

And there's just like there's so much there's male female dynamics, and does that moderate anything?

You know, there's the individual differences.

Researcher me is like, they can have fifty other control variables.

But I yes, yeah, but you're finding it in itself is very valuable.

Well one hundred percent, And I think to tie the neuroscience into it as for you know why, that's why it's warranted to say interaction is good for you is because the brain has these built in social reward systems, like because of the Savannah Days.

You mentioned that, you know, being in a small group or being on your own was a risk to survival a long long time ago, and so being in larger groups is always good, and so evolutionarily humans were the humans who are more social, who liked existing in groups, were favored, and so because of this the brain had Our human brains are social brains.

We have these social reward systems where being around others essentially drives the release of neurotransmitters that are reward and reinforcing, like dopamine oxytocin, which keep us held together.

Back then it was for the sake of our survival, but now the consequence of that might be when we talk to a stranger on the train, we actually feel pretty good, even though we might not expect you.

Yeah.

Yeah, I also think that there could have there could be an interesting study where you find that the large majority did not want to say yes, but then they at the end said I'm glad I said yes.

So you can find a finding there too.

You Actually, there's some research on introverts showing that they often tend to enjoy social interactions more than they predict they will.

So I'm just thinking of the parallel to that, to this scenario.

They actually did.

They did that, so not with the stranger, right, because there's two people.

There's the person who the research scientists told go talk to someone, and then there's the victim you know, on the other.

End, right right.

But the people who were you know, really engaged with the scientists.

They asked them to predict what the interaction would do for them and how it would impact their their commute to work, and they one hundred percent of the time under predict or uh, set the expectations lower.

They thought it was going to have like no impact, and then in the end they felt a lot better when they got off the train.

But now again even further, you know, group differences coming to play about introverts versus extroverts.

I don't I don't remember them doing that analysis of that breakdown, but I have definitely come into contact with the studies you're talking about where you take an introvert, you take a super extreme introvert, you throw them into a group conversation for ten minutes, and you say act extroverted, be as outgoing, assertive, you know, dynamic, expressive as you can.

And at the end of it, they're like, that actually felt really good.

But if you asked the same person to do that for a week, by the end of the week, they're like, please release me from this experiment.

I need to be free.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, a very good good way of putting that.

Well, like, like, I don't think we really really got to why social interactions are such a Why is it such a strong human need?

Why is it so important to have friends?

Yeah?

I mean again, I take an evolutionary viewpoint on this, and you know, it's truly a matter of survival.

And you can forget about humans for a second.

Let's look at a different species.

Let's take ourselves out of it, and let's look at like a mouse.

Right, If you're a single mouse and you're out in the wild and you're being hunted by like a snake, would you rather be by yourself or would you rather be with a group of a colony maybe we should say of twenty or thirty mice.

You know, probably it's gonna be beneficial for the sake of your survival if you're in a group, because maybe you're I don't know really about how well mice fight, but and if they could, like take on a snake, but at least being in a group, you're more likely to survive because you're probably gonna get away, and then you know there's a one to twenty chance of you dying versus the others getting hunted, so it's beneficial.

Humans are just the same, but we're way more socially evolved than mice.

We have all sorts of incredible features, you know, just for example, the whites of the eyes.

You know, the fact that there's a dark inner part of the eye and then the white part around the outside.

Most animals don't have that, the white parts called the sclera.

And because it's white, we can tell where someone's looking.

So just by interacting with someone.

You know, you're talking to someone and they start looking down at your pants and you're like, oh my goshs my zipper open.

Like something as small as that, you can read someone's mind.

That's super helpful for when you're you know, this fibu and you're in a battle with a predator and you can tell what the others are thinking just by looking at their face.

And we have eyebrows and all sorts of things like this that make us so adapt at working together.

And so that is so crucial because the you know, when it comes to evolution, and take evolution out of it when you talk about life period, regardless of where you believe humanity and the world comes from, the name of the game is survival.

You have to survive, and being in groups is how we survive best.

And so these these systems are meant to really reinforce us to be around others, these brain systems, I mean.

And on the other hand, you know, think about that mouse you get.

Oh, and by the way, I should have said this, mice are social animals too, and so they also have social reward systems in their brains.

But if you're the mouse and you get you know, exiled from your colony for some reason, and you make an insulting joke at one of the matriarch mice and they kick you out and you're on your own, you should have some signal that tells you this is bad.

Get back to your group, right, you are probably going to die in your own and or since humans are also social animals, our brains should have the same signal and that signal is isolation induced stress.

Being isolated, being away from others is stressful and it creates a It induces a stress response in the body, It drives cortisol release, and you know, of course people feel bad.

It increased anxiety, depression, all sorts of negative consequences.

And that's another indication of how important it is to be around others, because I believe that this is an evolutionary system, that it's our brains telling us.

You know, alarms are on.

Get back to your tribe or you might die.

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Okay, now back to the show.

Well, you made a good case.

You made a good case, I would say from evolutionary perspective, also, reproduction is in the part of the story as well.

Percent survival comes first because you can't reproduce of your dead, and then reproduction, which is also a lot of interesting science on that.

Anyhow, there really is.

Yeah, in the field of evolutionary psychology.

You know they've done They've mostly focused on the mating part of part of it than the survival part of it interestingly enough.

Okay, cool, Well you mentioned isolation earlier, and why do you think we're so isolated as a species right now in this this this time, this of human history.

Well, I've already mentioned one answer, which is that, you know, I really do think that the extended period of isolation that COVID brought sort of reset our social expectations, and we're still adapting to this new world.

You know, it's been a couple of years that we've re emerged into society, but we're still adapting.

Our brains are still kind of stuck.

I mean, I maybe it's just me getting older, but personally I used to be like, every Friday, Saturday night or Saturday during the day, well which friends am I going to see today?

And now I'm just sort of like, you know, my brain doesn't expect that anymore.

I'm just like, well, I'll watch TV or you know, do some chores around house or something like that.

So I think I think that's a big part of it.

But I also think, you know, again, the the cultural or the societal changes that were implemented to adapt to COVID.

Right, Like I mentioned all the the I refer to it as the automation of everything.

You know, you you call your bank, thank you for calling.

It's a it's a you know, it's an automated service.

You order your groceries, you see your doctor.

Even you can do a telemedicine instead of going into the office.

Here we are on a podcast, not in the same room, you know everything.

I guess this is an automated but this is digitized, I suppose, but this is happening all over the place, and even unfortunately with AI large language models, people turning to these for friendship, Like we are going in a really interesting direction because a variety of things.

And I think on top of that, the other at least in America but certainly internationally.

The other big problem is political polarization.

You know, we are beginning to beginning.

We have really divided, and it's it's much easier now than ever to judge a person based on their political affiliation.

Didn't used to be as salient, It wasn't as much of a focal point, like who did you vote for?

But nowadays we really fractured.

And I talk about this in the book as well, that that's really concerning because empathy is a core facet of interaction right, without empathy, the ability to understand and share someone's emotions.

Without that, you really that's like one of the parts of that of interaction that like humanizes someone in your brain right you are relating to them.

It's you know, here I am with my water bottle.

I'm not if I punched this water bottle.

I'm not feeling bad for it because my brain empathy systems do not engage for it.

It's not it's inanimate.

Empathy, though, is diminished for people who we view as in our outgroup.

And there's literally studies where when brain imaging studies were pople are putting brain scanners in they're let's say they're shown a picture or a video of someone going through something painful, and they're that person is assigned to either, you know, one of two group identities, and if it's the group identity that they that the person and the scanner shares, whether that's a religious identity, race, political identity, sexuality, things like that, the brain areas involved in empathy will show more activity when there's that overlap when people when you see someone as similar to you, your brain's empathy systems literally rev up more and you feel more empathy and so when we're becoming fractured like this, and fifty percent approximately of people living in the same country as you are your out group.

And it's not just like this is a minor thing.

It's like, no, I really feel very differently from this person.

It's very probable that our empathy systems are disengaging and we're just sort of dehumanizing each other in this way.

And I feel that that's a really tremendous problem and one that's you know, not so subtle.

I think this is pretty evident just kind of looking at the world, you know, go on social media and post something political and just see the response you get.

You know, yeah, I see as a real big problem too, and that's something I've been trying to fix, but help try to fix.

And it's boy, is it hard because people don't really want to change.

Yeah.

So basically, as I hear you talking, it occurred to me that, you know, we all kind of become psychopaths when we think about our our group politically, our mind is really probably not that different from a bona fide psychopath in that moment.

Right, And I mean again, evolutionarily, there is an explanation, you know, why, why not care for someone in your outgroup.

Well, if you're battling this other tribe and they you know, you see there, you see a person in a different tribe or an opposing tribe, and they're fighting an animal in the wilderness, it's better for you to not empathy for them because you know, you don't want to go in and help them and risk your life to save your enemy.

Right.

So that's probably where this all comes from.

But nowadays, we live in these very mixed cultures and we're around all sorts of different people.

And yeah, I mean, so the reason I say that is there's a measured psychopathy I guess you could say embedded in the human brain.

Right, you need to disengage sometimes when it's important for your survival.

But you know, nowadays, I think that we these systems are being taken advantage of.

I think, and we're really starting to see this disengagement from from people who you know, really should stay in our good graces.

I think that I see a lot of this.

Yeah, in families.

You know, it's heartbreaking to see, you know, families fracture because they disagree politically, and you know, and I hate to talk about politics too, because it's controversial and people get upset about it, but you know, it's reality, and I'm not here to preach anything but to just share the neuroscience on it that like, this is a real significant phenomenon that's affecting our country and affecting our brains.

Yeah, I'm glad.

I'm glad that you're talking about it.

I'm glad it's important and relevant.

Why from a neurobiological perspective, do people feel better after a social interaction?

I mean, I assume a positive social interactions neuro has a different neurobiological imprints signature than a terrible one.

But let's assume a good one for a second.

What you know, like, why what if you people?

Yeah, so let me let me talk momentarily about the neuroscience of social reward, that that social reward system we have.

And it can get a little complicated, but I think it's fun.

Think the neuroscience is interesting.

My listeners are here for it, all.

Right, awesome.

So there's three major players in the brain when it comes to social reward.

And when I talk about social reward, I mean, you know, think about cuddling with your spouse or you know, congratulating or a friend congratulates you on an achievement.

You know, these are things or even dare I say, posting a picture of your you in a swimsuit and getting a bunch of likes on social media?

Right, you're getting social right, and I will like that post for you, Scott.

So, this, this brain system of social reward is first driven by oxytocin.

And that's probably no surprise, right, We've heard of oxytocin.

It's the love hormone, and you know, whatever people call it, there's all sorts of names for it, but it's an It has a function in the brain as a neurotransmitter.

And most of that oxytocin is produced in a brain area called the peraventricular nucleus.

And so that oxytocin gets sent to a bunch of different brain areas.

And I like to think of this oxytocin release as the first domino falling, and then it tips two other dominoes over and those two other dominoes are serotonin and dopamine and so, and that happens in different brain areas.

So that oxytocin from the pair of ventricular nucleus or PVN gets sent to the ventral tegmental area.

And you know, I'm not going to get If you're interested in these brain areas, please do a Google search.

There's lots of fun stuff to read.

But the ventral tegmntal area is the primary is the largest source of dopamine in the brain.

And so naturally you can imagine, okay, if oxytocin, this love hormone, this social bonding neurotransmitter, drives dopamine, which is reinforcing and you know, drives motivation, you can begin to understand immediately why social interaction makes us feel good.

And you know, we look at look at this, look at it this way.

Every Friday and Saturday night, bars all over the world are packed full of people.

We have this precious free time and we go spend it in these tight quarters and social settings with others.

You know, why isn't it that humans spend our Friday and Saturday nights.

I don't know, you doing anything.

We could be reading, we could be cooking.

And the mating motive is part of that story as well.

Yeah, oh yeah, for sure.

And part of the reason for that mating motive is because of the same systems you know, these Dopamine is reinforcement to pursue is critical for love and romance, and oxytocin as well.

Anyways, the other system I mentioned is serotonin, and so it appears that oxytocin goes to a brain area called the nucleus cucumbans, which is very much involved in motivation and reward also, and in the nucleus acumbans that oxytocin comes in and it causes more serotonin to be released there, and that serotonin in the nucleus of cumbins seems to have this unique social property.

So research from doctor Rob Malka's lab at Stanford where I did my post doc, and you know, many great researchers have come out of this lab.

Doctor Milicha's a legend in the field.

He's known, he's credited for understanding a lot of what we know about synaptic plasticity.

So he's a legend.

He's a goat.

A lot of research from his lab has shown that that serotonin release in the nucles sucumbents in mice can drive just social pursuit.

So if you take a mouse and you stimulate that serotonin, they will suddenly become more interested in socializing with other mice if you do the same thing in a mouse model of autism, so a mouse that has a genetic alteration that's linked to autism in humans.

Normally those mice will be pretty disinterested in socializing, but you stimulate serotonin in the nucleusus compans, suddenly they're spending more time with others.

And also my own research found that that signal was the key for MBMA enhancing empathy also in mice.

So anyhow, so you can think about this this three dominoes, so oxytocin falls, it drives serotonin release, it drives dopamine release.

You get this unique reinforcing you know, probably energizing concoction of neurotransmitters that leads you feeling good.

So sorry for the very long answer with all the neuroscience, but effectively that's the answer.

The reason you feel good after your social interaction, especially a good one, is because it's tickling these brain systems that tell you this is reinforcing, we should do more of this, and this feels good.

This is really really cool.

And thank you for explaining that.

I could listen to you all day talking about thank you, which you're very good at it.

I appreciate that of course, so there's some nuances.

I want to talk about.

One thing I was thinking of is that can you ever have the dopamine domino drop and can that be a bonding experience?

You know, can that release oxytocin?

I'm not aware.

Jeez, it's a good question.

I'm not aware of that circuit from just curious.

You know, you'll bring some people in who I don't know, give them something thrilling to do together, and that's uh, you know, as a positive expectation of a reward, and then they report greater bonding and actually affects oxytocin.

I don't know.

I'm I'm sure there is interplay between those systems.

Okay, but but I don't know of any like specific studies that's documented that.

Yeah, no, right on, I'm just I'm just asking nerdy follow up questions.

Yeah, yeah, okay, cool, okay.

Oxytocin is an interesting one because, like some recent research I've seen suggested, it's probably best characterizes the in group love hormone, meaning that as long as you're talking to someone that you feel like there's trust there.

Trust is a big part of oxytocin, and in an agreement, you know, and ideas and things.

But you also can find that if you're talking to someone who you perceive in your outgroup, oxytocin increases aggression.

So, which is counterintuitive to people who have tended to think of oxytocin in the past as all lead the law form mode, it actually can be one of our greatest sources of antagonism.

Yeah, there's definitely right, there's definitely a link to aggression for sure.

I mean, you know, I think this is a beautiful demonstration of the complexity of neurochemistry.

Right, we have so much going on, and just like the question you asked, is dopamine dry boxytocin.

It's like, I don't know, but I'm sure it does.

You know, I'm sure there's some circuit in there, like eighty six billion neurons, all these different systems interacting in all these different ways.

They all influence each other, right, Like that's the other thing we talk about, Like, oh, you know, I just said it.

Oxytocin gets sent to the ventral to mental area and stimulate dopamine.

But like it doesn't just end there, right, There's like the dopamine is going somewhere and doing something and then wherever it touches is going and doing something, and it's all this like incalculable mass of circuitry that we can never track down.

And I've thought for a while that it would be cool to create some growing database of like all the brain circuits and like you click on one and it like just ripples all throughout and we can like try and figure out all these echoes in the brain of where everything is going.

But yeah, it'd be so cool, and maybe one day we'll get there.

And I certainly don't have the capacity to build it myself, but someone please do this.

But yeah, I mean, it's a complex organ and when I'm speaking about these things, of course, i'm speaking in broad general terms of you know, how neurochemistry works, but situationally, and like you mentioned group differences, right, there's so much nuance built into all of this.

So much nuance.

I want to really understand.

May head to run empathy because it just seems it seems like these days there's so much selective empathy, you know, and you know, so what determines how much empathy we feel for another fellow human being?

Okay, there's a lot.

And when I say, like, you know, how much empathy you feel.

It's not just about how much empathy you feel, but how much those brain systems activate.

And yes, we have scientists have sorted out there are certain brain systems or brain areas that seem to be especially activated when we experience empathy.

And those the two that come up a lot are three actually are the anterior singular cortex, the insular cortex, and the pre funnel cortex.

So when I say, you know, the following, what I mean is these variables I'm about to mention can influence how much activity occurs in these brain areas when we're trying to empathize with someone.

So one of them is, of course, the context.

Right, So if you if you're talking to a friend and they're like, man, I was stabbed by one hundred and fifteen needles earlier this morning, you know, those brain areas would fire up.

You'd be like, oh my gosh, it's horrible what happened to you.

But if they told you, oh, actually this was acupuncture, I feel so much better now after that, right, those systems will back off.

So the context of whether they're experiencing something painful, you know, it's it's about our ability to step into it, right, interesting speaking of our ability to step into it if we can really imagine what it's like to go through something.

So for instance, if you see someone get their hands slammed in the car door and you've had that happen to you before, or for instance, someone who's gone through labor and they're talking with someone who's talking about their experience going through labor.

Right, there's a difference in how much we can really reactivate the sort of concept of what that's like.

So that influences how much empathy we can experience for someone.

And on the extreme end, yeah, keep going.

On the extreme end of that, this is super super interesting.

So those some people are born with the inability to feel pain.

It's called congenital insensitivity to pain.

Very very rare, very dangerous, unfortunately, very you know, short life span for these people because it's pain is important.

But those people, they tend to underestimate pain for others, right, So they can't relate to the experience, and so their brains are less effective at embodying and understanding what the experience is like for others.

Now, another thing is in group out group.

Of course, I already mentioned this pretty much.

You name it, you know if someone is different from you, they're liable to induce less empathy activity in your brain.

And a really quick kind of way to think about this is if you imagine a ven diagram, right, two circles with an overlap in the middle, and you are one of those circles and the other person is the other circle, and you try to imagine self other overlap.

So put those circles together.

So like Scott, you and I.

You know, I'm a could picture.

I obviously don't know that much about your personal life, but I can imagine that we probably have a pretty significant amount of overlap just from what I know about you.

And with that comes more empathic activity in the brain.

And so, you know, one of the tips that I like to give is, if you're trying to empathize more with others, imagine this self other overlap.

Right, You're like, here's an example from the book that I really like to use because it's so simple.

So imagine you're driving on the highway and you see someone parked on the side of the road.

Their car is clearly broken down scale of one to ten.

Me paint the picture a little more.

They're standing next to their car.

They look super helpless.

They're maybe on the phone and like you're just like, man, this person is totally screwed.

Scale of one to ten.

How likely are you to pull over and offer them help?

And you don't have to share your answer, or you can.

Ask it one more time.

What's it likelihood that you will pull over?

Scale of one to ten that you will pull over and offer them help?

Sorry, tell the story though a.

Person is Okay, person is standing on the side of the road next to a broken down car.

They look totally helpless.

You could tell, you know, there's smoke coming out of their engine.

They're standing by the car.

They look distressed.

Whatever you're picturing, whoever the person is.

What's your number, scale of one to ten likelihood that you will pull over and stop and help them?

Okay?

Probably like if I have five times, probably the.

Nine okay now, and I want everyone listening to do that as well.

Please come up with your number.

No same scenario.

Imagine that you're driving by and you see the exact same scenario, but the person you see has a different skin color, and they're wearing a necklace with a religious emblem that is different from the religion that you follow.

Their car has a political sticker of a politician that you don't like.

Wow, maybe they're using a different brand of phone than you are using.

You know, they're sitting texting on an Android instead of an iPhone.

Wherever have you felt your number gradually declining?

Is it now lower?

And I know you probably your natural impulse, even if it is lower, will not be to share that it's lower, because that's you know, it seems really bad.

It seems like you're.

Well, you know, I'm weird.

I'm a I'm a weird human.

Like when I was in when I was really young, i was in special ad and I'd always like be lying towards the ones who look different, you know, So like in some instances it's so so contextual.

In some instances, I might actually be aligning to certain people who I feel like I'd be like, well, I don't think other people are going to help this person, so it actually would make me more likely to want to help them.

I know that's that that sounds like I'm making that up, But I but that I generally think that could be true in a certain instance.

Yeah, I believe like if I'm in like a blue state and I see like someone with a maga hat stuck by the side of it actually might be more inclined to be like, I don't think anyone else in this town is going to want to help this person, you know, or vice versa.

By the way, it's not just like I'm saying I'm pro maga.

That wasn't my point.

My point is, you know whatever.

Yeah, totally.

I mean, I wish you're What you're saying requires a very high level of cognitive empathy.

Really, yeah, I think I'm high in cognitive empathy for sure.

Yeah.

The purpose of the exercise, though, is that for most people, the gut reaction is it's going to be lower, right, Yeah, and that's because of that yourself.

Other overlap is diminishing, right, as you know, different color skin, different religious identity, different political affiliation, all these things are pulling this person further and further away from you.

And so in scenarios like this, if you ever encounter something like this and you're trying to will yourself into empathy, which by the way, would be a very noble mission, you can try to add things back into the middle.

Right, Maybe this person has a dog at home just like you, or a cat, you know, Maybe this person is there tonight when they get home, they're really looking forward to watching the same TV show that you like to watch.

Maybe the music they just turned off when they pulled over was the same music you're listening to you right now.

There's so many ways to fill in the gaps and make this person more complex than what these visible traits are that we often tend to focus on, and in doing so, you might actually gradually feel those empthy systems come back online and think, man, you know, I could really relate to this person this is this would suck for me if I'm pulled over like that, And in the moment, this may be really helpful because if you can will yourself into cognitive empathy what I just mentioned, which is the ability to understand someone's emotions and just think, what, you know, what are they feeling?

Right?

It can understand it in my head, then that may help you lean into emotional empathy.

Those are two different things, and emotional empathy is the feeling of someone's emotions.

So if you can get yourself to think, oh, you know, they probably feel terrible, and if you have that higher self other overlap, you might think I could just as easily feel the same way, I could just as easily be in the same position.

What would that feel like for me?

And if you can impose those those emotions over your own, you might start to feel that tightness in your chest of I'm on the side of the road, I gotta get somewhere.

My car's broken down.

I gotta call Triple A or whatever.

This is a disaster.

And then you can imagine someone pulling over and offering help, and it's just like a rush of oxytocin.

Really, it's like a rush of love.

It's like, oh my gosh, the impact I can have on this person is tremendous.

And ultimately, I don't think that we should let a couple hundred thousand years of you know, evolutionary precedent and this natural impulse to divide by groups to get in the way of us being a really healthy society and helping each other now.

And I think that's what it's doing ultimately.

Oh yeah, this is really really gold what you're saying.

In the personality change literature, the agreeable a disagreeableness factor dimension of human personality has been the one that's been the most difficult to change.

They've tried.

There's interventions, and people who are antagonistic are not motivated to become more agreeable, and people who are agreeable don't want to become more antagonistic.

So you just find that it's very hard in the personality change literature because there's not the motivation.

So I think there's like what you're saying, which is the things we can do, and then there's like the motivation aspect as well needs to be a part of it as well.

You can't bring a horse to water.

What's the expression.

I don't know, but you know what I'm trying to say.

Yeah, no, you can bring a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.

That's the one.

Yeah, I mean, it's it's a challenge.

And I think also recognizing your own empathy levels is also kind of difficult, right, I think, you know, I hear a lot of people say, oh, I'm an EmPATH, right, I have a lot of empathy.

But I tend to be like the worst people on the planet.

What are we gonna say?

This could happen.

But the other what I was gonna say is I've never heard anyone say, you know, I'm really low on empathy.

I really don't give a damn about anybody.

You know, nobody really says that, and those are the people who would be best to recognize that there are ways to actually enhance your empathy, not just through these little like sort of behavioral thought experiments that I'm talking about, but you know, there are literally trainings out there that can enhance empathy things like that.

But yeah, I mean, empathy matters, It really does.

Yeah, it matters so much.

And I just love how you connect all these things near book, you know, just the overall need for social connection with ways in which we can become disconnect isolation.

I mean it's all connected.

I see how, and I see how it's all connected.

I'm so very it's very, very wonderful to be able to talk to you.

Thank you.

But we're not done yet.

I know that sounded like all the best of you.

But uh, you know a few more questions.

Yeah, so what are your thoughts on the on the difference between virtual interactions, like you know, within the age of zoom the COVID.

You know, some people are like, we're not going back to the way we were before.

We I prefer this.

You know, what does the science say about that?

Now?

Yeah, I mean, gosh, By the way, I didn't even mention that, right, virtual interactions, remote work, right, like, all these things contribute to our loneliness issue.

Anyways, the science on this is emerging, right' it's fairly new.

But in general, so I mentioned that interacting makes people feel better for the most part.

Right, we discussed this difference between introverts and extroverts and such, but broadly, people feel better after interacting.

The research on virtual interactions seems to suggest that the less lifelike our interactions are, the worse we feel after not that like, so, okay, let's take a kind of a gradient approach, right, So, the best thing you can do is interacting person.

You're hugging, you're talking, you're whatever, doing all the things the brain does when we are interacting in person.

Now we step back to video, we've lost a couple things.

Number one, we've lost eye contact.

It's impossible to look into each other's eyes unless you're both staring at your camera, which is not eye contact.

Number two, we've lost social smells, which are totally a factor.

You know, we may not always notice them.

Sometimes we do notice smells from other people, but there's a lot of things that happen subliminally, we don't even recognize are going on.

And the other thing is we lose a bit of body language, right like, right now, I don't know what's going on with your lower body, Scott.

You might your legs could be fully crossed.

It could be you know, you can have them up, and you could be relaxing whatever that stuff matters of it.

Not be wearing pants right right, I assume need do, as are I am, But we are both we are both wearing pants.

But yeah, so you lose some of that information right then.

Now let's go in another layer, down to a phone call right less life like.

You can't see each other.

Now, go down to a text message.

Totally not life like at all.

You can't see here, see whatever, feel.

You can't even hear the tone of voice in the words that you're sending each other.

So it's very different.

And what the research seems to show is that people don't feel as good after texting with others as they do after talking in person or even on video.

And the reason for that maybe because you know, the brain doesn't necessarily recognize a text conversation as an interaction, it may not trigger all those positive effects in the brain.

Because it totally lacks most of the things that the brain uses to say, oh, I'm in an interaction with someone, right, Like the difference the difference my brain recognizes between my water bottle here and a person is facial expressions and tone of voice and all sorts of things that say, oh, this is a person, right, Because at the end of the day, we're just brains operating, and our brains are soaking up information, and so without those things, it's not going to have that same effect.

The other thing, of course, is that when we look at social media, which is not really a form of direct interaction, but it's allegedly a quote social medium, the more people use social media generally, the worse they feel, and they you know, they tend to show higher anxiety depression scores.

And interestingly, what I think is the best fun fact of all is that people who use social media more tend to feel more lonely.

So it seems to be not very social after all.

It may be isolating in fact, and there's a lot of reasons why this could be.

Obviously, there's you know, the social element of it, the social comparisons, you know, the hostility online, the arguing all this the fact that when you're on social media, you're generally by yourself, so you are actually isolating.

But there also might be a central role of sleep, which is interesting because in those studies where they're looking at, you know, people who spend more time on social media, they feel worse, they have, you know, their mental health is poorer.

Well, those people spending more time on social media are spending that time at night swiping instead of sleeping, and as we know, the effects of sleep deprivation are really bad.

It can harm your mood, cognition because all sorts of things.

But it may be that uh, that spending less time sleeping and more time swiping is is ultimately leading to these bad effects.

But but that can't account for some things like the loneliness for instance.

Wow, so it should be called the lonely media, not social right, just tweetlation media tweeted that this second while you were talking.

That's impressive, I admit it.

Okay, you inspired me.

Well there's so many Oh my gosh, there's so many questions I had for you.

Well, what what determines un likable you are?

I don't feel like likability is always the same thing as uh, like I feel like you can be have a very likable personality and still personally be very lonely.

M hm oh yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, like yeah.

Likability is is such an interesting thing because there's a lot of research on it, you know, and it's it almost seems like kind of a silly thing for scientists to study, but it does really matter, you know, because the more likable you are.

Yeah, generally there's a lot of benefits.

You know, people who are better aliked, you know, they are rated better in their professions and things, you know, all sorts of it tends to just create a sort of halo effect on people that it's like, oh wow, this person's great.

You know.

So there, of course, it's it's helpful to understand what makes someone likable.

There's a lot here.

Some of the things you can't control unfortunately, Like your level of attractiveness seems to have a really great bearing on how likable you are.

You can control that to a certain degree, you can, Yes, maybe that's sure.

Women can more than men.

I don't know, but yeah, I mean, you know, I do.

I do say in the book basically the technically this is controllable, but I would please advise you not to go, you know, reconstruct yourself because of this chapter, you know, because the other thing here too is that authenticity is one of the variables that controls likability.

So if you you know, discard your true self trying to seek a more or a more likable version of yourself at the expense of authenticity, it may not have any effect in the end.

The other uncontrollable but technically controllable thing is your name.

Interestingly, people have to tend to perceive others, you know, differently based on their name.

One.

I hate to make political references, but this is so interesting.

After we've talked for politics about politics for a while now, already there's some research showing that people with harder to pronounce names are rated as less trustworthy.

And to me, that makes me think about twenty twenty four election.

There was a lot of confusion I noticed about Kamala Harris's name, whether it was Kamala.

Kamala is hard to pronounce, right, which is a canonically less trustworthy thing in the sciences.

And so when you're talking about someone voting for a person that they want to be president, the person should be trustworthy.

And I thought, I've thought during the presidential election about I wonder how much her name without people even noticing it is affecting whether how likely people feel to vote for her.

Anyways, you can cut that if you want.

It later on.

No, that's super interesting.

Yeah, it's like these It's almost like I don't know if you ever read freakonomics.

It's like one of those like freakonomics, like science things.

Anyways, as far as the controllable things, you know, the things you can really grip and modify.

So body language is really interesting.

People move a lot when they interacts.

It's very natural.

And people also mimic each other a lot, and the mimicking is seems to be supportive for interaction.

So when you like, if we were interacting and I were to mimic your body movement movements, obviously not like one for one, I'm mirroring you like a mime.

That would be weird, but kind of just you know, you may notice this happening all the time.

Anyways, you cross your legs and the person you're talking with crosses their legs, or you're talking to someone and you notice, all that's funny, We're standing in the exact same stance.

Happens all the time.

It's very subconscious with humans do it naturally, and it's like this affiliate of thing.

It's like this subconscious way of saying I'm with you, I'm on your team.

Look, my body's even in the same position.

And it's funny because when when actors come in and they you know, in like a research study, and they mimic someone's body body positioning during like a short interaction, the people in the study, even though they don't know it's an actor, they don't know they were mimicking them, they will rate the person as more likable at the end of it.

So interesting and oh my gosh.

Yeah, And so you know, I again, I don't recommend like mirroring, but you know, it could be used to your benefit.

If you're in a job interview or something, you're really trying to make a good impression and they, you know, they sit back in their chair and they fold their legs like you could do the same.

It might it might maybe subliminately prime their brain just a little bit to like you better.

But another thing that's really important is uh expressiveness.

And there's a there's a very fine line here because expressiveness often goes with extraversion, right you're very you're making a lot of facial expressions, you're touching people, you're moving right, you're you're It's true, expressive and extroverted people are typically more more liked as well more likable.

But the thing about all this is in order for extraversion to make you more likable, you also need to have high emotional intelligence.

So you need to not just be super outgoing and expressive and you know, assertive and all this, but you also need to be able to understand the other person's emotions because we've all met someone who's really really outgoing to the point of being overbearing, because they don't necessarily take into consideration your experience in the interaction, right, it's just like so intense, and it's like I'm exhausted, and so that that fine line of being expressive and extroverted but also understanding the other person and using that emotional intelligence is really key.

So there's a lot of things.

You know, this is probably the extent of what my brain can can remember off the top of my head.

I lay it all out and there's a whole chapter about likability where I talk about these things in the book.

Yeah, it's wonderful and and a lot of these things that you're talking about that increase likability, they also increase inter brain synchrony, especially the mimicking stuff you were saying in the mirroring.

Yeah, interpran syncraine is such.

A cool I love that topic.

Yeah should I should I give a primary?

Yeah, talk a little about that.

So that was the what I wrote something about that shared a study.

It was like the most likes that I've ever received.

Oh, really really into that.

Yeah, I mean it's it's kind of sci fi, right.

It's one of those things where you hear about it and you're like, yeah, this is probably bogus, and then it's like, wait, this is actually real science that two brains can sync up, and you know, I have thoughts on this.

So the general idea with inter brain synchrony is that when two people are interacting, sharing an experience, working together, you know, collaborating, if you're measuring their brain activity, you may see synchrony and that certain brain areas might show basically identical patterns of activity.

There's a lot of ways this can be interpreted, and I think the way that it often strikes people is like, whoa, what like is this some sort of like quantum physics, right, Like, are these things are actually like linking up?

And you know, my impression is that I actually think it's just like you're on the same page, right, you're both thinking the same.

I don't necessarily think that like there's some signal emanating from your brain that they're locking up and the two brains are synchronizing as so much as you're engaging in this social state and you have all these facial expressions and you know, there's all this information in the world around us that allows our brains to function identically at the same time, which is supportive for collaboration.

And because our brain patterns are similar, we're like literally on the same wavelength, we're thinking the same, and so we can collaborate better, we can work better in teams, you know, we feel maybe more trustworthy and trusting of each other.

But the thing that's super interesting about into brain synchrony is that it's it's sensitive to like who's on your team basically, and like one of the most accessible pairings for inter brain synchrony, and by that, I mean like it's it's parents and children.

And if you put parents and children together, you have them work on a task together.

What I mean by.

Most successible is that they're much more likely to achieve into brain synchrony than if you put like two strangers together or even two friends.

What makes sense.

And which it does make sense because I mean for many reasons.

One, it's super helpful to be able to collaborate effectively with your children or your parents.

And also you know, there's all this your brains are literally similar because you're related.

But what's super interesting is that if you flip the script and instead of collaborating, you are competing with each other.

You have the parent and the child compete, the intero brain synchrony just completely vanishes.

And I find that even in like the same task, like if you have a collaborative task, but then you switch it so that they're like they're actually competing against each other, inter brain synchrony goes away.

And so to me, that's why I think of it as this like system helped to help us really collaborate in teams and makes sense, but the fact that it's sensitive makes me I think it's so fascinating.

So you know, if you're arguing with someone or whatever you're they're probably not going to be able to access that brain state with you.

Well, this goes into a very different territory.

But I've been curious about the telepathy tapes and what happens when two autistic people who are nonverbal try to communicate with each other.

You know, they seem to communicate it a different something difference going on, And so I think it's just it'd be cold.

It'd be cool to look get sycrity synchrony across different types of neurodivergence.

And yeah, yeah, and.

I actually I'm not aware of those.

What you're talking about.

That sounds extremely fascinating, but it makes me think of something.

You know, you're right in that inter brain synchrony can occur like organically, I guess you might say, like just kind of spontaneously, because I know there are some studies in infants where an infant can achieve into brain synchrony with their mother and just kind of like hanging out and playing, which is super interesting.

And what's what's also fascinating about that study is that they had the mother wear a shirt for a while to bed, and then when they put a different woman in front of the baby, that inter brain synchrony stopped.

Like the baby the baby does not synchronize with a person who's not their mother.

But if they put the mother's teach shirt that she was wearing that smelled like her in front of the baby while the baby was interacting with another woman, so it's just another woman and then you're just giving the baby the smell of the mom.

They achieved into brain synchrony, which is super interesting.

You know.

Maybe is because you know, infants have like very little sense of sight and obviously very low levels of you know, just sort of general awareness, so smell is one of the like true forms of sense that they can detect what's going on in the world around them.

But anyways, and also I mentioned earlier, you know, social smells.

You may not detect them, but they are influencing your brain.

That's another example of that.

But I just think it's fascinating that, you know, you're just with your baby and you're achieving into brain synchrony just looking and playing with them.

So that does challenge my notion a bit.

Absolutely.

It makes me just think of adults as well in different conditions involving smell, only know, like or listening to a nostalgic song on the radio, you know, can that cause synchrony between two people who once ended a memory together.

Do you know what I'm saying, Like, there's all sorts of fascinating ways of maybe creating synchrony that doesn't even involve direct communication between two people.

Yeah, and actually that does happen.

Like there's one study I'm thinking of that did something kind of similar to that.

They had people watch a movie.

They had to watched Friday Night Lights together, and they measured not brain synchrony, but like bodily synchrony, like breathing rate, heart rate, you know, things like that, like facial expressions, and they did find that there was some level of synchrony between the people.

And interestingly, even though the people didn't interact directly while they were watching the movie, the more that there are signals synchronized, like their heart rate and facial expressions, well simply watching the movie, the more they reported liking each other at the end of it, even though they didn't interact with each other, there was just some for some reason, the synchrony made them feel affiliated towards each other.

I think true oxytocin both of them.

Yeah, maybe so, I mean, I guess you're sharing a nice experience together, right, you're laughing at the same time.

In the movie, it's like maybe dope.

Yeah.

Well wow, wow, wow doctor.

This was such an enlightening episode and so important.

Thank you so much for coming to my podcast.

All the best with your book release.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate it.

It's been a blast.