Something You Should Know
Why Thinking Is Not All In Your Head & Secrets From the Longest Study of Happiness - SYSK Choice
Sat, 01 Feb 2025
We humans love novelty. We seek it out. While that can be good, it can also get us in trouble. This episode begins by exploring why we seek out new things, places and experiences and what happens after we do. Source: Winifred Gallagher author of the book New (https://amzn.to/3XsAxRb) Did you know that one of the reasons we gesture with our hands when we talk is to help us figure out what to say next? That is just one example of how thinking isn’t all about what goes on in the brain, according to my guest Annie Murphy Paul. She is science writer whose work has appeared in the Boston Globe, Scientific American, Slate, Time magazine and she is author of the bestselling book The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain (https://amzn.to/3Hp3k3R) Imagine if you followed and studied a group of people for decades and watched how they lived? You would discover a lot about what makes people healthy and happy over time. That’s what The Harvard Study of Adult Development is all about. Researchers have followed the lives of two generations of individuals from the same families for more than 80 years. Listen and you will be amazed by what they found. My guest is Robert J. Waldinger, who directs the study and is author of the book, The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness (https://amzn.to/3HpbFVc) Where are you on the introvert/extrovert scale? Listen as I explain the difference between extroversion and introversion and how to tell which one you are. You will also discover the difference between being shy and being introverted. And it’s a big difference. Source: Susan Cain author Quiet (https://amzn.to/3XQUH7d) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Why do we crave novelty?
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So, Annie, we discussed how being out in nature can help you think. But I also find that different rooms in the house or different rooms in other built, the inside surroundings can also make you think differently. Like I think better in a less cluttered environment than in a cluttered environment. And did you look at that?
Yes. And, you know, that's another way in which that sort of brain is computer metaphor falls down because a computer does its job just the same way, whether it's next to a window or in a dark basement or whether it's, you know, outside on a park bench or inside on your kitchen table. But the human brain isn't like that. You know, we are exquisitely context sensitive.
We really are affected by where we are at a given moment. And so it's, that really tells us that we need to pay very close attention to the place where we're doing our thinking. You know, one of my favorite ways to improve the place where we do our thinking involves what researchers call evocative objects.
And that just means filling your space, the space where you work or think or create with objects that are inspiring to you, you know, that remind you of your aspirations, that remind you of, you know, the groups that you belong to that you feel a kinship with and having those objects, those material things around you can really shape and prime your thinking.
I've always noticed how there are certain people in my life that when I speak with them, I feel smarter. And there are other people that I know that make me feel really stupid. And so I imagine that has something to do with what you're talking about, that the people that we talk to, that we relate to, affect how we think.
Absolutely, Mike. And this is a really common phenomenon that you're mentioning. I tell a story in the book about a researcher who said that when he met with his graduate advisor in psychology, his psychology PhD program, this advisor was a very intimidating, very kind of scary figure. And He felt that this researcher felt that his IQ dropped by 20 points whenever this guy entered the room.
He started calling it conditional stupidity because he wasn't stupid. He was a very bright guy, but under certain conditions, as you say, he felt really stupid. I think that has a lot to do with the sense of psychological safety that we feel with certain people, but also Their openness, their curiosity, their ability to ask good questions.
You know, some people are just going to bring out the best in your own thinking and other people are going to shut it down.
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