Dr. Alison Wood Brooks

Our status changes constantly.

One thing, before we move away from levity, one of the most effective ways to raise your status is to make people laugh.

It is.

I think we have an instinct that we think of humor as this like extra bonus thing.

Like, oh, there's that funny guy.

He made a good joke.

We're all laughing.

That's great.

Now back to the real stuff.

When we look at what's really going on with social dynamics in our research, if you can make people laugh even one time in a conversation, they are so much more likely to vote for you as the leader of that group.

Just one joke, if you just make people laugh, it's just a core determinant of status, earning status, and then keeping it once you've earned it.

I love that.

The fourth part is K for kindness.

And it's really this virtue that we all learn as kids that we should all be kind.

I don't know about you, Mel.

I spent my whole life really thinking, like, what do kind people do?

Day to day, moment to moment, what are they thinking about?

What are they saying?

How are they behaving?

And I think one of the great privileges of this new emerging science of conversation is we're figuring it out.