Emily Falk

Yeah, so there's this really wonderful research that I like that comes out of Brent Hughes's lab.

And what he's done is look at these networks of different kinds of traits and the way that people think of them as relating to each other.

And so there are some that are more central, like for example, our kindness or our compassion might be traits that we think of as core traits that are at the center of this network.

And the traits that kind of depend on those but aren't necessarily our most central traits, like maybe being witty, that those things are a little bit more open to feedback.

And so this team of researchers led by Jacob Elder in Brent's lab said,

found that it can be easier for us to incorporate feedback about traits that are more peripheral than our core ones.

Like we really don't want to change the things that we think of as being like really, really core to us.

So what the team found was that after receiving feedback, people were more willing to update their self-views about peripheral traits.

Like one example they gave is well-spoken.

People generally don't think of like well-spoken as something that's really core to their identity.

But if the committee gave feedback that was like, this person doesn't seem like they're that friendly,

then we might come up with reasons why like, well, I know that I'm friendly and maybe I was nervous and that didn't really come across in this video.

But like, I know that that's true about myself.

Well, it's interesting because I think that, you know, as the receiver of the feedback, we can kind of toggle between those different kinds of states.

I think it's really hard to control how other people receive those messages.

And we have much more control over how we do because there's a world where, you know, she says.

I'd really like to spend some more quality time with you.

And I take that as evidence that she thinks I'm not a good granddaughter and that's threatening to my core sense of self and my identity that maybe I'm not like as generous or kind or whatever as I could be.

But there's also a world where I can do the translation that you're describing and just say like, oh, let's figure out how we can make this work logistically, right?

If I can let go of some of that defensiveness and recognize that this is a goal that I have also to spend time together, then we're both much better off.