Dr. Ethan Kross
speaker
968 appearances
6 recordings
6 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard May 2025
Dr. Ethan Kross’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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So images being another sensory modality vision. So that's number one. Number two, there's this very interesting phenomenon where when we are in a particular emotional state, let's say we're feeling sad, We often don't reflexively seek out the happy music. We don't go to Journey. Instead, we go to Adele, right? We're going to Chicago. I'm giving you my age bracket here, right?
Like the music that has sad associations for me. So there's this mood congruency. If I'm feeling a certain way, I'm going to go deeper into that state and have the music facilitate me. Why on earth would we do that? Are we all masochistic? Do we just want to feel even worse? This gets at, I think, a critically important point that is not always talked about, which
is all emotions are functional when they are experienced in the right proportions, not too intensely and not too long. So sadness, as an example, is an emotion we experience when we've experienced some loss that we can't rectify right away. Something has happened and you can't fix that. So you've lost someone. And so what does this emotion do? Well, it...
hijacks the way we are thinking, feeling, and our bodies are responding. So it motivates us to introspect, to turn our attention inward, to reflect on this situation, to now try to make sense of it. Something really important in my life has happened. I now have to change the way I'm thinking about my life so I can find meaning and move on.
My physiology is slowing down so I can engage in that slow introspection. But what's also really interesting about sadness is it's also impacting my facial display, giving a sign to all of the people in my environment to say, hey, Maybe we should check up on that person, that guy, because he looks like he's on his own in a corner, right?
So can you detect when someone is sad, if you see like a sad facial expression?
And it enhances social interactions. And so some people are really good at detecting it. Others are really good at displaying it. I'm gonna go back to my daughter. So if something happens where she feels sad, she exhibits this exaggerated response like she'll stick out her lower lip. And even if I'm kind of upset at her, like it is amazing the power that that has on me.
It is so, so beautifully manipulative. And it's a testament to the power that these displays can have on us. So I wanna go back to one other question you raised in your last comment, and we'll go back to the inner voice and its functionality. You raised the question about being shifted by others, other people, and perhaps either just our surroundings, music or spaces.
Sometimes you don't want to have your emotions be shifted. And in fact, when other people try to do that, it can elicit what we call reactants. Like you get defensive because I don't want you pushing me in the particular direction.
I think that's a really important point that we need to be aware of as people living and working in these social environments where we're often well-intentioned, but sometimes our well-intentioned behaviors can backfire. And so there's this beautiful research which shows that
If you see someone suffering and you volunteer to help them and they haven't asked you to help them, that can blow up in your face. Because what it does is it often communicates to people that you are thinking that they're not capable of handling their own circumstances. And most of us, like, we're motivated to think that we're capable of handling ourselves.
And so there are still ways you can help people in those circumstances. It's called providing invisible support, which involves providing support to the person who can genuinely benefit from it, but not shining a spotlight on the fact that that is what you are doing. So how might this transpire? There's some really simple things you could do. So let's say my wife is...
really overwhelmed with stuff. And she hasn't asked me for help, but I know she is at her wit's end, work and kids and other kinds of stuff that are on her plate. I can proactively do things to lessen her burden. If it's her turn to pick up the dry cleaning and the groceries, I'm doing that voluntarily. I'm doing that and I'm not coming home and saying, hey, sweetie, look what I did today.
I did all these things. Can I have a pat on my back? That's not what we're talking about. It's about your group, your lab is working under a deadline, right, to submit a grant application and they don't have time to eat and you proactively have pizza delivered to the lab. It's those little things that can help. Give you two more examples.
Let's say that someone on your team is really struggling with their ability to translate their work for for popular audiences and that's something they're motivated to do. Really important skill for a scientist to be able to translate what they do for others to consume.
Before you pull them aside and say, hey, you know, I noticed that you're stumbling on a few different issues and here are a couple of things I think you can do better. Before you do that direct intervention, you might have a team meeting where you share out best practices. Hey, what are the two things that I've learned that really have benefited my ability to communicate with different audiences.
What you're doing there is you're getting people the resources they can benefit from, but you're not shining a spotlight on the fact that you are directing it to them. So it's kind of a back doorway of helping or of shifting. The last tool I'll mention brings it back to sensation. one of the most powerful ways we can shift other people is, is through touch, tactile sensation.
Um, you know, what's the first thing that you do with a child to soothe them when they are born? Hold them, hold them. Skin to skin contact. I remember, uh, both times my, my kids were born. It was like, you know, I want to get on that. Like, you know, cause my wife got first, first dibs with, with both of our daughters. Like I want some of that, you know, skin to skin contact. Uh,
That doesn't end after we leave the womb. The comfort that we experience, the release of stress-fighting chemicals that occurs when affectionate embraces are registered, that continues throughout the lifespan. So if my daughters who don't particularly like dad to volunteer advice to them on most things nowadays.
If I know they're having a bad day, I'll go over and I'll rub their back in a totally uncreepy way. That is an important caveat we should give to everyone who's listening. What we're talking about here is affectionate but not creepy or unwanted touch. It is touch that is mutually desired. And there is some research which shows actually that when it is not desired, you don't get these benefits.
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