The science of behavioral change

[Music]

so

i’m from oregon originally and i grew up

kind of in the middle of nowhere

the nearest town was like five miles

away and i’m using the term town

pretty loosely total population was like

150 people

i just didn’t really fit in very well i

love science

and logic and i wore my pants pulled up

way too high

and because the gods hate teenagers

appearing serious and rational is pretty

much a lost cause when you’re that age

eighth grade is just embarrassing for

everyone and i remember this one

experience

so clearly i was headed out of school at

the end of the day and a spider

had constructed a web right about base

level

for a teenager very considerate spider

and so when i walked out to go be with

my friends i got a face full of

spiderweb

and if you’ve ever seen someone walk

into a spider web from far away

it’s sort of an amazing thing right

they’re walking they’re walking totally

reasonable totally sane nothing weird

and then

out of the blue from nowhere they just

start freaking out

it looks like they’re like doing kung fu

against ghosts you know it’s crazy

all of a sudden out of nowhere they just

look insane

and of course my friends saw it and of

course they teased me about being

completely

out of my mind because it is the job of

your friends to remind you

that you’re not whoever you want to be

if you want to be a scientist when you

grow up they’ll tease you

about being irrational and of course i

did grow up to be a scientist

and what’s better i grew up to be a

scientist that studies irrationality

and so how people make decisions related

to their emotions and other things so

this talk is really just my way of

saying screw you

teenage classmates i made it right i am

here

but more importantly i want to talk

about walking into spider webs

in some sense everyone watching this

is like teenage me we want to be thought

of as rational and reasonable because in

many ways that’s how we culturally

define intelligence there’s

nothing wrong with that i am totally on

board with wanting people

to act based on evidence i’m a scientist

and so to take an orderly approach to

problem solving

seems very important to me but where i

start to get uncomfortable

isn’t with how we use reasonable but

with the reverse and how we label people

unreasonable or irrational because

there’s no doubt

unreasonable and irrational our

descriptions that we use to punish

people

and to keep them from sources of power

and participating in power fully

the women watching this know what i’m

talking about we love to call women

irrational as a way of belittling them

of implying

that their actions come from a place of

emotion rather than logic or evidence

the research here is you know sort of

endless you can look at the performance

reviews of women in the workplace

and find all of these adjectives that

are used to consistently describe women

as irrational or emotional or

you know sort of other kinds of

stereotype judgments about their basis

of their thing and they never sort of

see that in men’s performance reviews

you don’t see the same use of adjectives

you can even see it actually

um in in when we’re describing imaginary

women right in fiction

they actually have the same sort of use

of emotional adjective this is a

systematic pervasive problem in how we

identify women

and it isn’t just about gender think

about young black men

right young black men are more likely to

drop out of high school less likely to

go to college

surely they want to be successful and

surely they know education is a factor

in their future success how can they not

be putting

those two things together how can they

be so irrational

and of course it isn’t just gender and

race it’s not just women and black men

you can see this across the board

when poor world whites support you know

a

certain type of political candidate the

media often describes them as voting

against their rational self-interest

which is usually code for the fact that

their economic potential will go down

as a result of the policies of that

candidate i mean surely they realize

that cutting taxes on the rich will put

a larger burden on the working poor

how can they be so irrational

but what is irrational really i mean

hopefully you can all acknowledge that

when i walked into that spider web i was

acting perfectly rationally right

something was restricting my mouth

and i reacted to clear it you know and

if i say it in a particular voice it

really does sound particularly rational

perfectly sort of understandable even if

the action itself looks very strange i

mean try to think of my action as

narrated by like dan rather

something restricted his mouth and he

acted quickly to remove it

you know that sounds really good the

reason walking into spiderwebs appears

irrational is because the observer

doesn’t see the spider web that is they

don’t see the pressures that created the

behavior they only see

the behavior itself and because the

behavior itself

seems on the surface inexplicable your

mind doesn’t say oh yes

maybe he walked into a spider web maybe

that’s why he’s acting so crazy it just

seems

like i just all of a sudden started

acting bizarre and so when we judge

people

only on the behavior and not on the

pressures that create the behavior

because they’re invisible to us

then that’s where this we start calling

people irrational that’s where this

problem comes in

i mean let’s go back to women in the

workplace for a second it is a fact

an indisputable 100 true

economists agree fact that women are

underpaid relative to their male

counterparts

and part of the reason for that is women

act in a way that appears irrational

with regard to pay equity they don’t ask

for raises as often they don’t take

credit for their accomplishments

as often they don’t speak up in meetings

as often

and so they don’t get promoted as often

but those behaviors

aren’t random they’re not imaginary they

don’t ask for raises because we

socialize them not to

and we punish them when they do they

don’t take credit for their

accomplishments for the same reasons we

socialize them not to and then punish

them if they do

women don’t speak up in meetings because

men don’t shut up long enough for them

to do so

and if they do speak up or they

interrupt us so that they have a space

to talk we call them bossy

and we go back to labeling them with

emotional adjectives but

men don’t typically see all those

pressures that are creating those

behaviors

they don’t see systematic bias they

don’t see the socialization they don’t

see the punishments

so they look at the behaviors and they

say well this is a meritocracy these

women are silent in meetings and they

don’t seem to have any accomplishments

that they’re telling me about so there’s

no reason for me to promote them

this pattern plays out over and over and

over and over again in situations of

systematic bias

our young black men absolutely know that

education is fundamental to success

they also know that they are massively

more likely to be incarcerated or killed

by the police and deprived of their

opportunity to use

that education which makes spending time

elsewhere while they’re young

perfectly understandable and poor whites

who support

candidates are voting based on more than

just their economic self-interest

right the need to belong is a very core

fundamental human identity need

and candidates offer it to them they say

you know wear the hat

say the slogan and you too can be part

of the movement

we call all of these people unreasonable

because we don’t actually

understand the pressures that are

affecting them the pressures that are

creating

those behaviors and rather than trying

to understand those pressures trying to

to see where things come from it’s

easier to simply say that they don’t

exist

right just call women unambitious or

young black men lazy

poor rural whites stupid it’s easier to

say

there’s something wrong with the people

than to acknowledge

how their environment affects them and

when those judgments come from someone

with power

we have a recipe for an incredibly toxic

cycle an incredibly toxic system it

isn’t just that people are being labeled

those labels then become the

justification

for oppressing them when we deny the

existence of the spider webs we are free

to say that those people act

too unpredictably too irrationally to

participate

in power so what

i want to propose that in a world of

spider webs we need a

very specific approach to change

compassionate

scientific activism compassionate

scientific activism

why compassionate well compassion is the

first step in changing

behavior because compassion says i

believe

that the pressures that may be affecting

you

are things i can’t see and so i will

treat you with kindness and assume that

your behavior is based on something real

real to you

and when you look at modern therapy like

dialectical behavioral therapy dbt

right they make this a routine part of

how people understand each other right

validation it’s a skill they teach right

now notice by the way i’m not asking you

to agree with all behavior

that isn’t what validation is i

certainly don’t agree with dropping out

of high school

or voting for bad oppressive leaders

assuming that someone’s behavior is

based on something real to them doesn’t

mean you agree with the thing that

they’re doing

but if you don’t accept their behavior

as valid within the domain of their

experience

valid according to real pressures that

affect them

the only alternative is to believe that

their behavior is random

and random behavior by definition can’t

be changed

but that’s what we’re really talking

about getting rid of the use of rational

to label behavior matters

because ultimately we want to change

those behaviors for the better

we don’t want women to sit silently in

meetings we don’t want young black men

to drop out of high school

we don’t want poor rural whites

to vote for leaders that will oppress

them

but we can’t hope to change behavior we

don’t see those behaviors as

fundamentally driven by real pressures

that can be changed

and so we need to be compassionate and

accept that spider webs

exist but compassion isn’t enough

because it isn’t enough to say i believe

your experiences

are real compassion is necessary but

it’s not sufficient

this is where science comes in because

if compassion says

i believe that spider webs exist science

says

and i believe so much i believe so much

that those spiderwebs exist that i will

go find them that’s what research is

research makes the invisible forces

visible

now it’s important to take a second to

emphasize here i’m talking about science

not scientists

science as a process is specifically

about

finding and understanding the things

that shape other things right it’s about

finding and understanding those spider

webs scientists like me as practitioners

of science are highly

flawed and subject to bias and have

played a huge part in creating the world

in which we exist today i’m a scientist

and you can ask anyone i am highly

highly flawed

and full of biases but we need the

process that is science to

map the spider webs and show that they

exist because we already do this for the

people we decided irrational

i didn’t pick women and young black men

and poor rural whites randomly as

examples

we use the notion of irrationality to

perpetuate a sexist

racist classist power structure that

continues to bend over backwards to put

white men like me at the top

and because we put white men at the top

we study the pressures that shape their

behavior

more than anyone else’s guaranteeing

that we understand

those pressures and can support our

notion of their rationality in this sort

of endless loop because we see their

spider webs

when they act imperfectly we are more

likely to

attribute their imperfections to their

environment rather than to them and so

we’re

best at changing the behaviors of white

men and creating a better world for them

because we understand the pressures

that affect them and if we want to

change behavior for everyone

then we need to include everyone in our

understanding of how

pressures change behavior we have to be

diverse and inclusive

in our research as scientists all right

so we started with compassion we’ve

added science

but even compassionate science isn’t

enough i am

a phd dropout and i left academia

primarily because i found out

that it is gnostic in nature that is the

way you measure success in academia is

by generating

unique knowledge and that’s not a bad

thing remember i want us to see the

spiders to find out that they actually

exist

but if someone is struggling in a spider

web i don’t want to be the person

describing the thickness of the threads

if someone is struggling

i want to be the person who tries to set

them free

and that’s why we need action that last

word that activism

because compassion says i can’t see the

spider web but i believe that it is

there

right and science says and i believe so

hard so

hard that i will find that spider web

but his only action only activism that

says

and when i find it when i find that

spider web

i will tear it down i left academia and

became an applied scientist because it

allows me to take that last step to find

the systematic spider webs and start to

pull them apart we live in a world

of deep structural inequity some people

are just realizing this but some have

experienced it their whole lives

i like spider webs to talk about this

because they aren’t accidental they’re

well structured

they’re deliberate and they’re designed

to ensnare

and if we want to change the world that

we live in the deeply unequal place that

we have built together

we need to learn and practice these

three skills

compassion and science and activism are

not just philosophies

they’re behaviors ways of being and it’s

incumbent on all of us to want to

create change and to learn these tools

to do so

because this transformation from

focusing on behaviors to focusing on

pressures

is magical it’s one of the most

immediately impactful things that any of

us can do because instead of trying to

box people

in by dealing with their irrationalities

we reconfigure the systems to set them

free

we weaken some pressures and strengthen

others to help create an environment

where people can behave according to

their best intentions

to the things they actually are there

that are important to them like their

beliefs and their values

now look that doesn’t mean everyone will

act the same or even act well

because we have tremendous variety in

our beliefs and values

but we want people to be able to act

authentically that’s what real

rationality is the chance to do what we

believe in

to make actions and intentions line up

and when we do that with compassionate

scientific activism we get to a better

world

we believe people when they say their

spider webs exist we spend time

and money and energy finding and

understanding

those spider webs and then we tear them

down

because when you clear away the cobwebs

you find out who’s really doing kung fu

against ghosts

and who’s struggling to be free

struggling to pull the strings from

their mouth

struggling to breathe so let’s do it

again

compassionate i believe the spider webs

exist

scientific i find and study them

activism i tear them down compassionate

scientific activism thank you so much