You and Me and Mr. Self-Esteem

Oh y wait, you're listening.

Listening to Radio Lab Lab Radio Lab from WN Weiss. Hello? Can you hear me? Yeah, yeah, we hear ya. We're just ignoring you. Okay, that's fine. You were not. I was waiting until it was recording. Hey, I'm Latif Nasser. This is Radio Lab. And today Do you know what this is about at all, Latif? Only vaguely, only two words. A story from a pair of friends. Producer Matt Kiltey and contributing editor Heather Radke. You want to say him? Self-esteem? Yeah.

Or maybe this is actually really in fact a story about Heather's need for constant validation and praise. Dang, right coming in hot. What is the most sort of like honest explanation of how this came about? You were feeling bad. I think okay, the o most honest answer is sometimes probably like More than I like to an embarrassing degree, I feel bad about myself. And I am a creative person in a profession that where there's lots of ways that you can

If you're so inclined, you can find to feel bad about yourselves. There's always a list you're not on, always a sales number you didn't reach, always a pitch that didn't get accepted. Right. And And Matt is here acting like you're an alien from another planet or something. Yeah, totally. I guess. A few days ago Heather asked me if I was proud that she jumped in Lake Michigan when it was cold. And he was like, Nope, not proud, but not in.

It was jumping into a lake. Wait, Matt, but you you don't feel uh do you feel immune to all of these problems? I maybe Like the kind of uh in my self loathing a little bit more. I I I've been a party to that in the past, uh one time or another. Yeah, I've I've I've witnessed that. in in the kind of project of the sort of goal of trying to feel good. But I mean I don't think it's like that weird that

I want to feel better about myself. No. Like I think the question of like how might I feel better about myself is pretty normal, like kind of about as normal as it could be. It's like their whole industry is based on this question. Yeah, it's like everywhere. Like you see it everywhere. Like it's on reality TV. It's on Instagr you know, it's like everything about Instagram is like how Instagram is giving us low self esteem. Like W but like what are w why are what this this just Matt Heather

Therapy hour? What kind of thing is that the thing is that the story here? What's going on? It's a little bit of that throughout. Uh no, no, no, no. We do okay, no, we have a story um that Heather and I spent a long time working on. Years. Years working on. Wow. But it's about it's about the fact that this idea, this thing that Heather's talking about, this this pursuit of feeling good about yourself. How?

Sort of weirdly, it's not that old of an idea. Yeah, it's it's not that old. It's kind of all based on a lie. Hm. Okay. And how so much of this you can kind of really trace back to this one guy. How do you say his last name? I think I think it's Vasconchelos. That's how I've always said it. Vasconchelos, I think. I mean I think.

John Vasconcellos or maybe Vasconcellos. Everyone calls him Vasco. I just feel like I think interesting I mean this is just a weird thing. Robert Pattinson, the Hollywood actor, bought the film rights. Did I tell you about this?

No, I don't tell people this. Yeah, he bought the film rights because he wanted to make the film of Vasco. And he spent I spent I had a three hour meeting with him about it. And he was like, who do you think should play Vasco? And I said, I think it should be the guy that Magnum PI. And he was like Tom Selling? From Select. Yeah. It was like I said the wrong thing. I thought they'd be good. Well I no I can I can see it. The mustache. And the big like bear like thing. Okay.

John actually died back in twenty fourteen and so we ended up talking to the author Will Store. So Will wrote a book about the self, like how we think Of ourselves. Called Selfie. Selfie. All right. Like it. Which has a whole chapter on John. And then we also spoke to Yeah, well I've got all kinds of curiosities and and questions. So Mitch Saunders, one of John's closest friends. But I think those little uh

emerge as as we get going. Yeah. And before we get started, I guess I just wanna say in reporting the story, I've always kind of thought of John as like an Icarus figure. Mm. He's a kind of modern day Icarus where he wanted so much to feel good. He wanted everyone in the whole world to feel good, but he did fly maybe a little too close to the sun. So what drew you to John initially? Um, what I thought was so interesting about John in his early life.

was that he was born into a very strict Catholic family. Oh yeah. A big, big influence was the Catholicism that he grew up in. So if we back up a little bit, John was born in nineteen thirty-two in San Jose, the oldest of three kids. His father was superintendent of schools in the East Bay. His mom was And John as a kid, he was clearly very bright, never really got in trouble, and was also a very strict Catholic. A good Catholic boy.

And the kind of good Catholic that kind of fetishised self-loathing. Because this was a sort of Catholicism that was heavy on therefore Justice sin came into the world through one man original sin and death through sin. The idea that we're all born sinners. And in this way death came to all people because all Sin he was raised behold, never to think well of himself. I was brought forth in iniquity to never think about me the eye. And in sin did my mother conceive me.

Did not show pride, did not show anger. That you are a horrible person if you touch yourself, if you engage with anybody else in any kind of sex whatsoever outside of marriage. It was this upbringing of being told so many times in so many ways that you're less than, not good enough, fundamentally flawed.

He used to tell a story. Who knows whether it's true? Because it's such a great story, where he ran for class president in the eighth grade and he lost by one vote. And do you know whose vote it was? His own. His own vote. That one vote was his. He voted for the other person. He was so self hating that he couldn't bring himself to a So to vote for himself. But he believed in himself enough to run but not enough to

What a puzzle there. Yeah, he's a tangled web. When I was looking through his personal archives I found a letter from an early girlfriend that actually said to him, The thing I love most about you, John, is your absolute humility. You know, this this one of the things that animated him was his own lack of

Confidence in himself. He would later become class president. Attended this fancy private school in the Bay. He was valedictorian. He got into Yale and Harvard. But he chose to stay in California. Santa Clara University went on to Santa Clara Law, was valedictorian everywhere he went. Graduates top of his law class, becomes this

Quite a successful young man working at this law firm in the bay. Tall, broad shouldered, clean cut, black suit, black tie, neat hair. And in nineteen sixty two he needs no introduction to any California. He decides to join the reelection campaign of Governor Democratic Governor Pat Brown.

And he would say this later in an interview that it was like this moment on this campaign where politics became, quote, etched in his heart. And so in 1966, at the age of 34, he runs for a seat in the California State House on November 8th, 1966. And then Well, he has this spectacular nervous breakdown. He completely collapses. The way he describes it, he says, I found myself

And my identity and my life coming utterly apart. Was there something that precipitated this or what like what Well at the time no one knew what precipitated it? Like he never talked publicly about the details of what happened. Well but the way that Mitch would describe it to us was It was kind of as if John had felt like he'd been handed a script.

His whole life, like a script from his family, from his church, from society of like this is how you're supposed to dress, this is how you're supposed to behave. He had no place to go. And after that, John realizes, he says in his book, that he has to find some help. With genuine inquiry.

About who he really is. It was these therapy sessions with this Catholic priest that would kind of crack John open and send him down a new path that would eventually lead him to this place called Esalin. The Esseline Institute. I feel like this is a famous It is. Yeah. Yeah. I mean if you're a fan of Mad Men, that's where Donald Draper ends up at the end of Mad Men as well. Oh, that's where he is. Uh-huh. That's where the future was born, really Esselin.

So the Esselin Institute is this place in Big Sur in California with unbelievable natural beauty. Mitch, like John, spent a lot of time there. And if you can just imagine like this big mid-century house on a cliff. Overlooking the ocean. That's Eselin. And there are these amazing hot mineral baths right on the edge of these cliffs. There were these baths that you had to get in naked. John said the first time he discovered that we're supposed to go into the tubs with no clothes on

He actually turned around and left. Uh'cause like he just has so much sort of shame around his body, discomfort around it. Um But Mitch says like this was the point of this place of Esalen. It was a place where you could go to climb out of the what I think John and certainly I believe was a pit of misguided belief.

You know, there's something f you're fundamentally flawed at birth. There's something wrong with you. The promise of Eselin is that it was a place to help you finally kind of realize your true Self. And that in doing so, you could find liberation, freedom, maybe even deep happiness? What a promise. Yeah.

When you say it like that, I don't know if I wanna meet my true self. I have whenever people say that, the find my true self thing, there's a way that it's just sort of confounding because it's like, well what are you talking about? Like my How am I not myself? What is this self? That's not when I was taking out the garbage, was I not my true self? Yeah. Well don't worry. We got to the bottom of it.

Indeed we did. So yeah. So no this is So we ended up talking to this guy, Michael. Michael Pettit, professor at York University in Toronto. Where he studies the history of psychology. So uh and Michael told us that what was going on at Eslin in the sixties Is that it was sort of representative of this huge Shift that was happening in psychology. Because up until this point, a lot of what psychology was.

Came from Sigmund Freud. Freud. And Freud? Similar to the Catholics, really. Famously had a very pessimistic view of human nature. Which is the subterranean horrors of the subcontinent. We are primal, inherited, ugly, full of horrible dark secrets, pestering impulses and compulsions. That we are covering up from ourselves. And that even if you go and seek treatment, you seek help through therapy, you will still be left with Everyday unhappiness.

What he called ordinary unhappiness. Ooh, I like that. I like Freud. Yeah, of course you do. Oh shut up, Heather. But okay, so basically Freud is like, Yeah, we're all suffering here. This is what we're doing together. Yeah. And that the best we could hope for is contentment. Maybe. But a little bit after Freud and a little bit before Esselin. This is around like the forties and the fifties. There come these new psychologists who think we can be happy. Who think we can be free.

From our suffering. And one of those psychologists was this guy. Basically the Anti Freud. Something of yourself. Carl Rogers. I'm Carl Rogers. He's the second most influential psychotherapist ever after Sigmund Freud. And Rogers believed that.

Sure. People are messy, they're impulsive, but fundamentally people are good. And the reason that people suffer, the reason that they feel pain and anxiety. I have found the same yearning theme emerging from Time after time after time is because the person would be saying, I'm not really me. People aren't being themselves. Your true authentic self.

Instead, people were suffering because they were trying to be here's a rather typical statement who they thought they were supposed to be. From a young woman. She says, I think that I began to lose me. When I was in high school. There's the young woman who's always trying to please everybody. Trying to make people feel at ease around me. Or to make things go along smoothly. Or the young man. Why am I afraid of her? Who tries to never disappoint his mom. This is silly. I know it.

But I can't seem to fight it. Or the guy I think that I've always loved people. Who always buries his emotions. But I've never dared put it into words. Roger said when he got down to it Patient after patient would tell him. And that is what causes our suffering. This picture you present to the outside world. Our pain. You can see how this was John. Yeah. Suit and tie, normie haircut, kind of playing the role of the good Catholic.

And so for people like John, Rogers had developed this way out. To leave behind this false rule. This type of therapy. And get closer to being one's real self. That would become this. And that was The encounter group.

So could you just walk me through like what was an encounter group at Eselin? Yeah, so encounter groups it would be kind of this break From the everyday. You would go to Esalin. You would be with a group of strangers. Maybe five people, maybe fifteen people. Who don't know you. Who have no expectations of you, so that you can maybe be as vulnerable as one can be. The primary

ideas in an encounter group are the things I mentioned this morning. So John went to a bunch of these. I think he went to eight encounter groups at Esselen. And how it worked was we open and honest. And to talk about your feelings.

This group of strangers would come together for hours and hours, sometimes days and days and days on end. There would be a group leader, a therapist, or kind of a charismatic leader to guide everybody. And what you're hearing now is a documentary that was filmed in nineteen seventy-two. It was a week long encounter group at Esselin. And how it starts is the group leader things like um I can't do something lays out these kind of ground rules. It's usually just a way of not taking responsibility.

You try to say I won't do it rather than I can't. Also, don't ask questions. Instead be direct, be honest. And one other thing is that the most important thing you can do here I think is the thing you're most afraid of. That's the thing that will help you to grow most. And so these ten strangers are sitting in a room at Eselin in a circle on this carpeted floor, and they just sit there in silence, glancing at each other. But if we're not supposed to ask questions, I'm not sure what to say.

And then things shift. Hit this as hard as you can and keep going and scream at each other as you do it. And it is wild. Like the group leader will get some of these people to punch pillows. To let out these primal screams. Or if they see conflict, they'll be like, hey, how about the two of you? Wrestle each other. They'll also do these exercises. It definitely bothers me about you. To try to get these people. Like I get the idea that

To tell each other. I get bored when you talk to me. How they really feel about each other. Yeah, there's just no question. I'm fucked up. How they feel about themselves. I'm jealous of that. as Will puts it, the whole point of all of this was to create an atmosphere of radical authenticity.

And actually what we need to do is sort of dig down deep into the the core of who we are. And this is the whole idea behind Roger's philosophy. I I hope you can appreciate the fact that if you can feel accepted. That I feel an acceptance. Of you as you are. For who you really are. Flaws and all. We're born absolutely right. Perfect divine. Then you can find a way. And I pound on a pillow and I get it straightened up a little bit. And I found out that what I always thought was true is true.

I am good. To begin to love yourself. I'm not really sure that I want to be married to the man I'm married to. For example, in the doc there's this woman probably in her late twenties, long dark hair. I allow myself to believe everything he tells me about me.

He says you're too you're too heavy, you need to lose weight, and I buy that as being so. Who tells the group how she often feels fat, unattractive? I'm pretty. That's very hard for me to say. And the group leader the risk of this reputation. Would you take your clothes off? Yeah. asks if she would stand in front of the group naked and so she does. Would you look at your body and feel it for a moment? Totally naked in front of these ten strangers. And tell us how you feel about it.

Feels very soft. I like the curves in my body. And I don't feel embarrassed about standing here and I like that. And they have her look at herself in this mirror. Take a look. What do you see in there? What about the girl do you see there? I like her. Tell her that. I like you. I love you.

And what all was John learning about himself back then? Aaron Powell Well, one of the things that that first happened for him was he realized that there was all this deep-seated rage that he didn't like the way he was raised, that he he felt it was You know, that did him in. That he was dealt a bad deck of cards and he was raging about it. And Mitch said that John told him one of the first times he went to an encounter group.

uh go over and sort of attack him. Attack him. Whoa. They ended up in a wrestling match or whatever and you know, John felt fulfilled at the end of whatever that experience was. He began to realize that he was angry. And that it was okay to feel angry. Mitch says that a lot of what John was going through just kind of came down to just being seen, being heard, being held as he was, as he is. And what happened is

John went from buttoned up, black suit, black tie, neat hair kind of guy, to someone entirely different. Or, as Carl Rogers would probably say, he recovered. Someone who he already was. Wild and free, like he grew his hair, he'd have medallions, he had his shirt half unbuttoned with all this hair coming out of it. He was always rumpled. People used to say he looked like an unmade bed. He drove around in this like mustard-colored convertible with the top down, even when it was raining.

writing it at the top down. He could be brash, blustery, angry, but also very sweet. People in his office. had these stacks of what we called vascograms. These little handwritten notes from John on like a newspaper article you read. I'm just thinking about you. Here's something you might find interesting. Literally hundreds of people would get these vascograms. My God, I got mountains and mountains of m he was big, he was expressive.

For the first time in his life. And there are some crazy people who, when they discover something that has a lot of power and meaning and makes a real difference in one's life. Their first and almost natural instinct is to find some way to share it. Before we get to that. We'll actually have to leave it here because Heather I have to go to therapy. Is off the therapy where maybe she'll punch some pillows or have some kind of break.

Breakthrough, you know? Yeah, maybe I'll have some breakthroughs. Uh yeah. I'm sure it's gonna be life changing. I've only been telling you to go for the last five years. Okay, well when we come back, I will still have not gone and we'll pick back up with a story. Okay. Hey, Lulu here, and this episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. It is March, in like a lion, out like a lamb, and somewhere in the middle, it's International Women's Day. And BetterHelp wants us all to just take a moment.

To consider the women in our lives as our personal lives, our society, and thank them for their strength and for all that they carry. That work matters, they matter, you matter, and therapy offers a space for all of us to take care of ourselves in the way we deserve. Think about the roles you play for the people you love. Think about how those roles, intentionally or not, weigh on you and in the worst moments work to weigh you down. Therapy helps.

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to the But then but there are mysteries that are not to do with murder. Okay, I'm done. I'm done with this. Okay. Um but you're the one who was eating a cliff bar the whole time. We just had to talk about something. No you don't. I can take bites in between this. I did it yesterday. Okay, both of you Okay, Luttiff Radio Lab back with

Heather and Matt. Matt's in a spicy mood. Where were we? Fuck. Blow my lid today. Whoa. Embracing my true self. You know what I actually hear you saying? Love me. Love me. Okay. Uh so we left off. Yeah. Uh John goes through this complete transformation through therapy, through Eslin, through reading

books about psychology. And is he still an elected official? He is. He used to say I was the most therapized politician to ever live. And he's probably right. Yeah, he probably was the most therapised politician ever. And Mitch said it was actually back in nineteen seventy eight. when he first encountered John. At a conference in Santa Barbara. He was the keynote speaker. This disheveled keynote speaker who got up to speak. John Vascantellus.

He was wearing a sport coat, shirt and tie, but obviously underneath the white shirt was some really funky T shirt that had some strange design on it. Is this broadcasting okay you'll hear me? Okay, thank you. This obviously is John. First I want to welcome you. I'm the legislator for this district in the California legislature. I want to say welcome to California. And second I want to uh

Acknowledge the significance of our being here. And the stuff that was coming out of his mouth. Hopefully uh our being here is meant to be and we carry away with it some sense of meaning that. Serves to illuminate our lives and that of those around us. Tell each other who we are and let me tell you who I am and his speeches John would talk about growing up Catholics.

He would talk about therapy. Then Esalin for encounter groups to free up my feelings as a man. About Eslen, about Carl Rogers. Odyssey for my own self discovery as a person. I had never heard a politician talk that way. And eventually Mitch actually got to meet John

funky little condo in Santa Clara and I don't remember exactly what we talked about, but it towards the end of that conversation I asked him I said, Would you be willing to be my mentor? I I've just not had exposure to anybody as as uh wonderfully strange as you. Uh he agreed, and that became the beginning of quite a partnership over You know, that was that must have been

eighty two, I guess, and you know, from then to the time he died in twenty fourteen. And I guess what exactly was it about what he was saying that made you kinda like want him to be a mentor. It was his way of articulating the through line from psychology and how we are formed as human beings, you know, through family, religious and

uh you know, all the various influences that come come in to influence who we are and how that plays out in the world. And then the thing that really intrigued me was how he was applying that or extending his philosophy to the world of politics. Because for him everything began. All all policy, if you really unpack it, is based on some really fundamental assumptions. The politics we do is who we are.

that my values and my vision, my sense of myself informs what I do socially and relationally, institutionally and pol publicly. And that that really is at the heart of the struggle in the nation and the state now. It's not just about money or privilege or power. It's about those but it's about visions of human nature. And John's message was this the title of his talk at that time was The Liberating Vision. Our pedagogy, or intimacy.

Cynical traditional people are basically evil and ugly and dangerous. We people creatures aren't ruined by original sin. And need to be contained and repressed and ashamed and guilt-ridden and locked. Policy you know, really important.

Important social institutions and how they're run very differently. That's one view of human nature. For John If we are to have a people-first culture and if we are to ask people to grow, we need to orient all our policies and all our efforts that must have at their very heart as its very foundation. اشتركوا في القناة

He really embraced Carl Rogers' view of humans being like plants, that given the right conditions they'll almost always orient to the sun. That humans will, you know, if they're not screwed up, will orient to what's positive for them and those around them. But the problem here is He's espousing this liberating vision for for everybody.

Like what does any of this actually mean in terms of public policy? It's like this Harry Fairy, pie in the sky kind of thing. Like you're like what is what is this use to anybody? He doesn't have anything that he can actually put all of that in that might actually affect policy. Until Something shows up and

Can you guess what that might be, Latv? Um Two little words. I with a little hyphen. Self-esteem. There it is. Because it was in the nineteen eighties when self-esteem emerges. This phrase, this idea, self-esteem a person's perception of their own worth starts becoming a part of the public consciousness. Absolutely. And I think I wanna just kinda talk a little bit about

Where that phrase comes from. Yeah. Because it becomes so Yeah, I do I question where that came from. Where did that phrase come from? So Michael Pettit, our history professor, explained that in psychology Self-esteem goes back to eighteen ninety with a book called The Principles of Psychology. Which basically says that self-esteem is this thing, this self-worth that you have.

Based on the things that you do, the things that you care about doing. For example, a famous psychologist back then wrote, I don't think I'm the best boxer in the world. So if someone's a better boxer than me, eh, no biggie. But instead of boxing, let's say this other person is a better, more famous, higher achieving psychologist, that does hurt my self-worth. That does hurt my self-image.

And the way that Michael explained it was this was at a time in psychology where the self was not a unified thing. It was just kind of like Parts. You had different parts, different aspects of a self. And then you had these different things where you might find worth or value in. It's like you almost. stake your territory where your identity and value lie.

And it's like and and other places it's like you've ceded that territory. Like it's okay, it's fine. But then in the thirties and the forties. The very idea of the self changes. Exactly. Psychologists come with this idea of a personality, which is your unified whole self. And so self-esteem becomes a more global.

It's no longer like how you feel about these individual things you're good at. Now it's just about how you feel about you. That one either had high self-esteem or low self-esteem. So for psychologists it starts to become this really important measure of a person's entire well being.

Like their whole mental health. And one of the things that we found fascinating was that in the pivotal nineteen fifty four Brown v. Board segregation case, one of the crucial arguments made by the opponents of segregation was The dolls. It is a super full famous study, yeah. On how black children prefer a white doll over a black doll.

And this shows how they've internalized society's negative attitudes towards themselves. The theory being that they'd sort of been given low self esteem by society. So I think Michael says it's also right around here that you get Maslow and his famous hierarchy. Hierarchy Hierarchy of Needs. Although whether it's actually a hierarchy or not is a bit of a controversy. I always see it it's a pyramid. It's a pyramid. But Maslow.

himself never drew it as a pyramid. Uh that comes from a management textbook a couple of decades later that tried to popularize him. But anyway. So Maslow's whole thing is that you have all these different needs and they all need to be fulfilled in order to become the best version of yourself. Needs like food, water, sleep, security, stability, friendship, intimacy, and And so through the self-

Growthful vision of human nature and potential. While John is giving these speeches, self-esteem is becoming a bigger part of psychology. And it was in the early 80s that

That these two things, self-esteem and John Vasconcellos, start to circle each other and become this much bigger thing. Because what was going on in the eighties was Good evening. We're coming off the bloodiest year in the history. This panic this year are really grim about rising violence and crime. There was the crack epidemic. Look at a very serious matter. The incidence of teenage

Teen pregnancy. The prisons are bulging. And for John in California. We keep escalating the drug war and drug use goes up. These became the issues of the day. And what happened was In the course of about a five week period. Some kind of things came together. Sean said one day he was reading an article. An article that said education, kids who drop out of school or don't make it of a lack of self esteem.

That self-esteem was connected to how well kids do in school. Then I read folks who get addicted to drugs probably are lacking enough sense of self and reach for something to get high on or get the pain dulled on or get down on. Self-esteem might be a way to drug abuse. That maybe self esteem was a key component in why people were using drugs.

Then a guy came to San Jose, did a speech on teen pregnancy. He was this popular psychologist, sex educator. And uh I heard him say teen pregnancy is probably a lack result of a lack of self-esteem. That kids were maybe having sex at an early age. So that they could feel better about themselves. And he latches on to self-esteem.

We gotta look at this. Because what all of this was telling John, what self-esteem was telling John was that at the root of most of our social ills were people who didn't believe in their fundamental values. So by nineteen eighty four, he was the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. John controlled the budget of California, the fifth or sixth biggest economy in the world. And he goes to the governor of California and he says, Look, I need to spend money on a task force.

A task force to promote self esteem. Yeah. So what was the initial reaction to this idea? The initial reaction was massive skepticism um to this idea. So writer Will Store explained that the governor at the time He was a no nonsense Republican. He had a reputation of being very hard nosed. Weren't ten folks from coming out of school. or seven drug addicts that c cost the treatment will save taxpayers billions of dollars.

Like possibly this is a really cheap way to make society better in all kinds of ways. Certainly a cheaper way than like raising the minimum wage or something, you know. Right, right, right, right, right. But the other thing he tells the governor is that this will also promote Personal and social responsibility. Ah, so this is the like kind of 80s part that's coming in. But the way he thinks about it, he talks about this a lot in speeches, is like

If you pay a lot of money for something, you value something, you tend to take care of it, you know? Uh-huh. And so he's just applying this basic logic of like, if you value yourself, you'll take care of yourself. And that it actually might lead to all these Societal changes because of it. That makes sense. That makes sense. And so in nineteen eighty seven, the governor says okay. And John creates the self esteem task force. The task force to promote

Self esteem. You knew John before you were invited in? Oh no, I hadn't known him. This is Emmett Miller, former member of the task force. I'm not sure how he discovered me except I was widely known locally for having invented the concept of mind-body medicine and holistic treatment of my patients.

And there were people like Emmett. The godmother of family therapy. Chicken noodle soup for the soul guy. Remember that guy? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Some other people from Esseln, but also others, black, brown, white, straight, gay, Asian, cop This is not a small thing. Is this tape number one in a proposal meeting? This is not a small thing at all.

So nineteen eighty seven this big group of people would get together. Big round table kind of setting. And the group would find to hear from experts, for instance. Therapists, psychologists. They'd read anything they had published, interview them about their therapy practices. To put together the principles of what we might call healthy self-esteem. They even hired researchers at Berkeley to devise

studies looking at self esteem in six major areas of social concern crime and violence, alcohol and drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, child abuse, welfare dependency and educational failure or success. To try to answer this question, does having high self esteem actually lead people to being a better citizen, being more successful.

Now, while that's going on. Do you know about Doonesbury Lotif? Yeah, sure, yeah, yeah. It's hard to understand today how influential this comic strip was. It is huge. The power that these Doonsbury strips. It was in almost every newspaper. Everybody read it. Is that Gary Trudeau? Is that it's Gary Trudeau. Well, Gary Trudeau with his

Very clever Doonesbury cartoon. In nineteen eighty seven, he found out about the task force and decided to make jokes about it. He um created a new character Barbara Bupsey Ann Bupstein, who is an LA actress and spiritual medium, who had been invited onto the task force on the basis of her twenty years of feeling good about myself.

And out of body experiences. And it's just like joke after joke about this task force and it's woo-woo nonsense. And this goes on a two week run day after day. Just making fun of the self esteemed task force. Two weeks of satire with me, you know, this California goofy legislator with this California group. And the whole nation. Absolute ridicule is what happens. Laughed. So there's a quote from the Pittsburgh Post Dispatch.

Who said California is the state that produced Jerry Brown, the People's Temple, Sister Boom Boom, whatever that is, drive in churches, Charles Manson, the Esselin Institute, and now a governmental task force to promote self-esteem. Now there's one more California joke to tell at cocktail parties around the nation.

always need someone to pick upon to make themselves feel esteemed. He was hurt. He was angry. But the thing is that Doonsbury strip about the task force when he did that everybody else Paid attention. It's how everyone found out about it. That is what made it famous. We spent three years at it. And at the end of the three years, nineteen ninety, the results were that when we compared people who live their lives

uh with real self esteem did so much better. People with high self esteem did better in school, they were less welfare dependent, they were less prone to crime and violence, substance abuse. So they put together this report. Really fat report. That yes. Self esteem does indeed cause all these amazing effects. They publish it. And there's a complete one eighty All of a sudden. John Bascon. People want self esteem.

B B C London Economist talk show in Australia, national C B S morning, out of New York one day. John's giving speeches. Apple seed himself All across the country. Vasconcellas. California symbol John Vasconcellus, he's on Oprah, has turned self-esteem into a virtual crusade, telling the nation. That we have a cure for all the Yes, assemblyman. I really feel that you are onto something here.

The Philadelphia Inquirer said it looks like John Fascontrols may have had the last laugh. Time magazine, the sneers are turning to cheers. Really like what you're doing. I think you're right on Facebook. So excited. And this pretty long, very dry task force report. This report has sold fifty thousand copies. Everyone's all over the state is over the nation, all over the world psyched about self-esteem.

Did anything ha change in the interim, like in those three years that would make them more receptive to the idea? I mean I guess I feel that it was just one of those ideas that the culture was ready for. I think there's a couple ways to understand it. For me, the economy actually plays a big part in all this. Will says that in the eighties, across the West.

You see anti union politics, increasing privatization, the end of social safety nets, and like calls for personal responsibility. And that had a m sort of a huge impact on who we were and how we understood the world as a people.

I mean the best way to sum it up is if you think about who we were in nineteen sixty five versus nineteen eighty five. We you know we went from hippies, collectivist sort of screw the man, anti materialistic people to greed is good and material girl and Whitney Houston singing And also right around the same Which was becoming stinking. This huge So what do you really want? Better relationships, financial independence. So these ideas were already kind of out there in the culture and and I think

launched the self esteem movement in nineteen seventy five it wouldn't have got anywhere. But by the mid eighties This idea of I'm amazing is the answer to all my problems. It I just feel like the culture is ready for it.

And also I think it's worth realizing How many of us have been in counseling and therapy? I bet somewhere sixty million Americans have been in therapy. That therapy was also becoming this huge thing. And there's this book from the eighties that basically says that now the modern equivalent to salvation, to heaven

was mental health. We've all been in counseling and knowing more about our own identity and sense of self and desire to be authentic and open and whole. At that kind of convergent point in time our task force came on the scene. It's like all of these things came together in this exact right moment for John to step onto the scene and just be like, Hey

I have something powerful, this social vaccine, self esteem that could help all of us. But what does that look like when you translate that into real work in the world?'Cause he he wasn't ho he was never content with just Shooting the shit as he used to say, just talking it had to result in something that made a difference. So if you have low self image, you can do something to change it. What? Speaking of faith? Self-esteem. It's the way we feel about ourselves. Make your self-esteem as well.

Self esteem is something. That's coming up right after this short break. Hey, Lulu here, and this episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. It is March, in like a lion, out like a lamb, and somewhere in the middle, it's International Women's Day. And BetterHelp wants us all to just take a moment. To consider the women in our lives as

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Okay. Lothiv Radio Lab back with Heather and Matt and self esteem. Okay, so John's got a social vaccine. Right. Question of course is like, well, how do you inoculate society? Like what do you How do you actually even how do you do this? Like how do you teach people to feel good about themselves? And for John prep school days, education comes from the Latin word educare. The answer was It doesn't mean to stuff in or sit still and shut up. The schools.

Education educar means to draw out, to draw forth, to evoke, to call forth. You start with kids. And so in the late eighties, early nineties, there was this huge push to get some Yeah. Called esteem builders, a K through eight self-esteem curriculum. Activities for the elementary grades. Uh huh. Building self esteem in the secondary school, teachers' manual, and instructional materials. And how this works.

Let's see you got a class of kids. Everybody, good morning, good morning, good morning. Hello back there. Everybody, yeah, bring it down. Could be whatever grade. And the teacher would have one of these workbooks. Which in it would contain these worksheets. Today we are gonna do um today we're gonna talk about yourself. And how a lot of these begin is Imagine that you're looking in the mirror but trying to get the kids to answer this really basic question. What do you see?

Who am I? I look like brown hair, brown eyes. I have long hair. Loned hair. Dark hair. I think I look beautiful kind of. Long brown hair. Or there's prompts like three things I want to say about myself. What makes you different from other people? thing I would tell a new friend. What makes you you? I love listening to music. I like chemistry. Basically, who is this person that is the self? Okay. Good. Can't have self-esteem without a self.

Now think of some of the things that you like about yourself and that you wouldn't want to change. And then of course there's just a ton of stuff about what are those things? Um liking yourself. Being confident in who I am. How my

style is that my hair is the right length or something like now let's imagine that every person at the school gets a gold medal for something that they are really great at. Everybody gets a trophy what would your gold medal be for? Greeting baseball screaming the loudest.

Or everybody get together. There were things called sharing circles. Kind of like encounter groups, but for kids. Oh, that's sweet. So they can all yell at each other. No, it'd be like, What makes you really happy? Tell us about when you felt good. What's one of the best things that's ever happened to you? Okay, now everybody knows what a sparkle statement is, right? Um

What are sparkle statements? So this comes from the book Esteem Builders and they are a long list of statements you can make to a classmate. Yeah. So you're cool. I like knowing you. Let's play together. Hope today is super for ya. You're my friend. You're a good buddy. Matt, I'm gonna print this out and put it stick it next to your desk. Yeah, I know. Somebody could use a few more sparkle statements in his life. Nah, maybe we should be a little bit less sparkly. And would this have been like

Like what class does this slot into? They they work this sort of stuff into like kind of your regular class. Like home room kind of thing. Yeah. And and it runs through I mean, this is like programming that is available K through Twelve. Wow. Yeah. And I will say I had it every year I can remember. What do you remember? I mean I remember I remember Duso the Dolphin. Never heard Dusso the Dolphin. Which is this dolphin puppet.

Who taught us to feel good about ourselves using song? Nay. Okay, wait, I'm trying my my But I also did this call out on Instagram to see if anyone else remembered similar things. Yeah. Well so I guess And my friend Leslie Jameson, who grew up in LA in the early nineties. We always called them put ups and put downs. That was like

the name for, you know, saying something nice to somebody or saying something mean. And she said that her teacher, this was like maybe third grade, had this policy that if someone received a put down the thing was that you had to like go To this little patio, this back patio, and the person who gave you the put down had to give you five. Oh wow to like counter the put down. It's like doing push-ups or pull up. Yeah. Punishment to praise.

Hey. Oh hey, how are you? Good, how are you? I'm good. I also heard from this woman Peg. Peg Heiner from Chicago. Who had this wild story. It was like 1995, is when I was in eighth grade. About how there was this teacher who every morning after the Pledge of Allegiance. And the announcements She had a handwritten sheet of paper that had two stanzas of I Have Confidence from the Sound of Music. She had the bold gusto. To make a whole eighth grade class sing these two songs.

Confidence that spring will come again. And sometimes twice. And she's like, that wasn't loud enough. One more time. It really it's like the anthem. The self-esteem anthem. We had this thing called Star Attraction. Another friend of mine, Jane Marchant. She was a nineties kid in Northern California. And I still have this poster with Insanely large.

It's this big poster with Jane's second grade picture right in the center. I have these like horrible bangs. And all around the picture are these stars where her classmates had written something. Jane is nice and fair. Jane is loving. That's funny. Here, Jane is nice. Funny, smart and good. So those We got take home slips of paper to write home and post.

There was Amy Kugler in Wichita, Kansas. Other affirmations. Other affirmations. To just post around your bedroom? Yep, just post around my bedroom. I am a smart and kind student. I respect all. There's my friend Gina Penciero. I grew up in Verona, New Jersey. Who remembered learning about ILAC. I A L A C. I am lovable and capable.

I mean even our writer Will Storr. I I remember being at school and we had to go around in a circle and everybody had to say something good about themselves. He got this stuff over in the UK. There's like an education week article from nineteen ninety one.

that lays out that at this point already thousands of schools are starting to participate in this self esteem curriculum. There are over a hundred workbooks to promote self esteem in the classroom. So it it just became embraced by the educational system in a major way. Throughout the nineties, self-esteem became the dominant language that people in the West were using to talk about themselves.

They use self-esteem to talk about their childhoods, their successes, their failures, their ambitions, just how they thought about who they were. And for John, this is more than It's more than just something for the classroom. It seems to me that self esteem is the vision, the heart of a new culture.

A new way of being, a new way of living, a new way of educating and politicking and living and working and all the rest. And may you have in your own lives evermore freedom to be esteeming, to be public, to be political, and to have good times for yourselves. Thank you.

Uh but but that but should I talk about the the the lie a bit? This yeah, this might have been in the story which we had we told you. Yeah, you promised this was all a fraud. I'm waiting for the fraud. Yeah, the lie.

So yeah, this is like Will's whole thing is that One of the things he discovered when he was reporting his book is that in the archives I managed to find an audio cassette recording of the actual meeting where the Cal Berkeley researcher hired by the task force presented his findings.

And he told the task force back in nineteen eighty nine that yes, they had found some compelling correlations between self esteem and education. But in other areas, the correlations don't seem to be so great, and we're not quite sure why. And we're not sure when we have correlations what the causes might be. Let's take for example one of the areas where the findings are a little bit loose, which has to do with self esteem and alcoholic abuse.

By and large, there are positive correlations here, but what does that mean in terms of cause? Do these people go to drinking because of an earlier history of self-doubt, self-degradation, worthlessness, and so on? Or is it the other way around? Does the involvement in alcohol for years or decades constitute the causal basis? for the feelings of worthlessness that we discovered in people who have been involved in that. So he was basically saying to them We have some okay correlational

links, and of course, as we all know, correlation isn't causation. And he was saying, but other but but other links are not at all correlational. And we do have correlational leaks. You've got to ask that basic question, w what is causing what? So and he and he warns them later in the recording, um, you know, he says you've got to be careful about

correlation and causation. Um uh and he said y you you've got to avoid the sin of overselling. He said, nobody can want to do that. You don't want to do that and certainly we don't want to do that.

And yet that's exactly what they did. Literally what happened. Oh yeah. We we had many, many conversations. And we talked to Mitch, John's friend about all this. Arguments, if you will, like what's the actual nature of the research that's gonna happened here. They'd argue about the research, how John interpreted it. And constantly challenge whatever he was looking at, you know. And how did he respond to that?

He'd he'd take it in. Um would he get defensive or would he just kinda like nod along? He would just kind of nod along, just do his he'd he'd listen, take it in, but then go ahead and do whatever he wanted to do. Mitch said that with John There were uh many things that you can't shake loose. And you know, that was part of John's uh genius and shadow. And so through the nineties when John was going around saying that self esteem was this social vaccine

he was doing it seemingly knowingly on the basis of nothing. Hm. And so what would happen was that in the early two thousands, the very shaky foundation of the self esteem movement

Started to collapse. You know, I was more or less oblivious to the self esteem movement. I mean like you weren't watching TV. So one person that we talked to was this researcher named Jennifer Crocker. Well, I knew that people worried about it. People would say, Well, yeah, low self esteem really is a problem because you can't do anything about your situation until your self esteem is high. And I'm like

I don't think the data are consistent with that idea. So Jennifer basically spent her entire academic career my first publication on self esteem. studying self-esteem. Probably nineteen eighty-three around there. And Jennifer told us about how in two thousand three there were these psychologists and a bunch of other researchers who pulled together a very long and I think

Really excellent overview of what is the value, what is the benefit of self-esteem. They went through decades of whatever research was published, hundreds of studies to look at what are the differences between high and low self-esteem people. And what you see is that, you know, self esteem is correlated with

Grades in school. It's correlated with how attractive people find you. But these are tiny associations. So basically it turned out a lot of what had been claimed in that task force report was just Really not true. Like all the claims that they were making about self esteem being a social vaccine that it it was a cure for drug use, alcohol use, crime, violence, teen pregnancy, poor academic performance. This research showed that whether you had high or low self esteem

It wasn't causing these problems. Right. Right. Huh. And so It's weird because like even though you're telling me the science of this. And that it's like this this huge study. Like as I'm hearing this, I'm like it like the story logic of it holds so hard. It made it makes such intuitive sense. It makes such intuitive sense that it's like it's like

Why wouldn't a kid be better if they why wouldn't my relationships be better? Like I I it's so hard to like dislodge it even when you're literally telling me it's wrong. Okay. Well, I can tell you one thing that the research showed about

a meaningful difference between people with high self-esteem and people with low self-esteem. Which is that high self-esteem people think they're smarter, more successful, more attractive, better liked, more popular. than low self esteem people think they are, in spite of the fact that they're not really any different from low self esteem people in these objective ways. So basically for people with high self esteem. Life feels good to them. They're generally That seems good. All of them.

That's like the most important thing of everything. Well, okay, what Jennifer would say is Right. There's I think there's nothing wrong with being happy. Yeah, like of course, sure. Being happy, that's meaningful. Right. Our emotions are central to how we experience our lives. But that's not All there is to the story, said Because there is a downside to high self-esteem. Which is what? Well, the research shows that people with really high self-esteem

tend to defend their positive views of themselves. And so you see high self-esteem associated with things like defensiveness. Aggression. Uh okay. That makes sense. Yeah. Totally. Um they found that in education sometimes self esteem programs produce actually like complacency, reduced effort.

resistance to any sort of critical negative feedback. And then there's Jennifer's work. For I don't know, ten or fifteen years, I was really interested in what people base their self esteem on. And we found that pretty much everybody based their self esteem on something. So Jennifer did this study at the University of Michigan with students who were intending to apply to graduate school. And what they found was that for the students who tied their self worth

to high academic achievement. When they got rejected from a grad school, their self esteem obviously went down. And it would for some of the students it would actually stay down for several days until something happened to kind of Shake them out of that funk. And for many of these students, they were showing more signs of depression. Whereas the kids who weren't tying themselves, it seems, to that academic achievement than when they didn't get into the programs.

They like could weather the storm. And then the other thing that was really interesting to me is that the students whose self esteem was really based on their academic success. when we asked them, Well, what would it mean for you or about you to get into graduate school? They would write things like, Oh, It would prove once and for all that I am brilliant, I am great, that I am successful. It would prove something about me.

And Jennifer, this kinda like shows you the fatal flaw of self-esteem. Yeah, it's just that if I have earned high self-esteem today, By having some success in my life, then have I earned low self esteem tomorrow if I have a failure? Like if I don't succeed at something, does that actually mean that I am worthless? That I don't have value? Yeah, and and she told us

There was this prominent psychologist in the 90s and 2000s who went so far as to say self-esteem is the worst sickness known to humankind. Because when you Feed your great boat when you fail your shit. And so in 2004 there's this big New York Times Sunday magazine piece called The Trouble with Self-Esteem, kind of tearing down John and the task force and the promise and dream of self-esteem. In two thousand five there's an op ed piece in the LA Times basically doing the same thing.

Scientific American article called Exploding the Self-Esteem Myth. Yeah, this is like when self-esteem becomes a joke. Yeah, like the sort of every kid gets a trophy, participation. metals. Right. This is when all of that starts to become like very prevalent in how we think about self esteem.

And there's actually online there's all these published emails that John and some of his friends in the movement were sending to one another in the wake of all of this. It's kind of heartbreaking. Yeah. It's like John is sending these emails, they're written in all kinds. And he's saying like there needs to be like a point by point rebuttal of the times piece and that they needed to fight back and quote, take on this enormous historic life.

That just makes John seem like he's really fighting alone on an island. Like he's like the Japanese soldier fighting on the island like after the war is over, kind of thing. I think that's fair. I mean he never really um never stopped fighting. Yeah, he never really stops fighting. I mean there's a two thousand and nine interview with San Jose Inside, which is

Right. And in it he's quoted as saying, So now all over the world the role of self esteem is widely recognized and valued. I think it's really proven to be all we thought it was and more. feels so like it feels delusional to read that. Yeah, that does sound delusional. And I think Heather and I r reporting this story and like learning more and more about John is i the sort of it feels sort of desperate in a way, and I think it's because for John

who grew up in this very strict Catholic family, whose Catholicism felt like this enormous sort of weight, this constraint, this thing that made him feel fundamentally flawed and broken and bad. Like to shed all of that. Through these ideas of self-esteem was like so vital and important to his sense of self, to his sort of well being. I mean, do you feel like you were his good friend? Do you feel like he

Like, I don't know. Like he was a person very committed to personal growth. Do you feel like he ended up being the man he wanted to be? I'd say yes and no. I think there w there was a lot that he was proud of, and rightly so, and yet there was a lot they would have said is undone. And I'm I'm pretty sure he was disappointed that he never realized some of the levels that he's I think he thought he was capable of. I mean, the he got to hang out with Bobby Kennedy, you know.

I think he he thought he his life should be something like that. That level of influence. Do you think he had high self esteem? I think his own self esteem and and the fragility of it was you know, one of his struggles for his entire life. He's got all this power, all this influence, all this accomplishment under, you know, v twice valedictorian just constantly amassing successes and yet there always being more to do. Um Then every time he'd see his mom, you know.

She'd treat him the same way I bet she did when he was five. And he'd come crumbling down? No, but he'd just be annoyed and, you know, frustrated. Hesmos. common trigger would be to get angry. Each of us get triggered in different ways. And his his would boy, he could erupt in no time. Aaron Powell How do you think you felt about how he was treating the people around him when he was angry like that? Oh big blind spots.

Oh really? Yeah. Yeah. He'd feel bad about it, especially if somebody would say something. He was very very good at at cleaning up his messes, but He he could be very embarrassing. He'd go out to dinner and kind of post heart attack he was very concerned about what he was eating. And if somebody f brought a a dish that was full of cream or something like that, he'd rage at the waiter or waitress, You trying to kill me or something?

Just you know, he'd he'd lose it at times. And that again I think a lot of that was due to him being on this journey of trying to be his real self but also being

In the public eye all the time. Aaron Powell And Mitch told us about how another thing that John really struggled with throughout his life was just with relationships. He never really um not I didn't even don't even need to word add the word really, he never developed an intimate one to one relationship that Uh, yeah.

And every so once in a while I'd get a call from him that he was just, you know, almost suicidal just because he he longed for intimacy, closeness, and the the best he could get were these one night stands. That's so sad. So And Mitch and Mitch said there was this point in their friendship where Mitch told'em, like, look how about you become a member of our family?

And that was our contract. Huh, what did that look like? Oh, my you know, he my kids grew up with Uncle John around all the time. We did a lot of things together, vacationed. He would be at our house. God, two, if not three weekends a month, especially when the session was out. But even when session was in, uh He'd prioritize uh spending time with our family. His experience of being loved and being close to people came from these extended family relationships.

There were three families that he would sort of cycle through, but he never had his own. intimate one on one relationship. Yeah, there were very few opportunities for him just to be seen and appreciated for just being alive, not not being an instrument. When he got sick, he'd come stay with us towards the end of his life, Um he actually stayed in our spare bedroom for several weeks before I could you know, before I found an appropriate place for him when he was really really on the way out.

Mitch says this was twenty fourteen and it was when John was diagnosed with a really aggressive form of cancer. And he wanted to be back home. So we got him back home, got him on hospice. And would you go over to his house to see him like often or yeah, every day. I was with him every day, basically.

And what was that like just to be there every day with him? Well, I don't know if you've ever been with a person who's dying, but it's um I I haven't, not that intimately. Yeah. Yeah, you spend most of the time just being there or sleeping, you know. Not a lot of energy.

the last few days of his life, the thing that we worked on together was he he let me know that he was afraid. He'd given a lot of thought to how to the actual dying experience and He was deathly afraid of dying by asphyxiation. Um when people take their last breaths, you especially if they're conscious, it it can be very hard to actually let go and not take another breath. He was terrified.

So we would we'd practice, we'd take like five or ten minutes of just him practicing how to let there be longer and longer periods before he would take an inhale. And to have the sort of to be in his words, to stay in charge of his own reactions so fear didn't take over. And Mitch says it was in late May of twenty fourteen. There were a group of his closest friends who were present around. We we all knew it was getting close to the time. And John He insisted that he

Be naked. This is the guy who in his thirties, when he went to Eslin, was terrified of being naked. When everyone was going into those pools, turned around and left because he just felt so ashamed. And humiliated about his body. He wanted to go out finally, everybody seeing and holding and blessing him naked.

And so the the morning he died, I was right there holding his hands holding one hand, his friend doctor also friend of mine holding the other hand, and Uh, as he took his last breath, I, you know, reached down into his ear and said, You you can do it. He took that last breath and that was that was it. That was May 24th, 2014. And I I have found myself thinking, just sort of thinking about what John did.

And what parts of it are still with us now? I do think the self esteem move. has had a cultural effect, right? Again, Professor Michael Pettit. I I definitely think a kind of psychologized self-talk is much more prevalent and available. Now than before. My employer sends emails all the time about my mental well-being and offering, you know, you know, here's a class, you know, on campus, this type thing. So the language of mental health and mental Wellness is even more prominent than ever before.

Yeah, I and I think the deeper idea is that everything that you're feeling is valid. Author Will Store. I always sort of think about this stuff, Carl Rogers and and and Vasco when I'm watching real'cause I you know my one of my guilty pleasures is reality television. And when you're watching reality TV, like when you're watching like a below deck or or big brother.

And somebody behaves terribly. Their their excuse very often is, Well, I'm just being myself. I'm just saying what I think. I'm just you know living my truth. Yeah, living my truth. And that's still a very powerful idea in our culture in the West. But I think maybe the biggest Maybe even the most important legacy of John's work is actually in the schools. All right, good morning boys and girls. So last year, Heather and I went to school in Queens, PS229. I feel like I should also say hello.

To see how psychology gets used in classrooms today. And today, if self esteem is taught in classrooms at all, it's pretty tiny. And instead you ready to do some SEL? What's in the classrooms across the country is this thing called S E L, Social Emotional Learning. All right, boys and girls. Today we're gonna be doing a lesson called Let's Make It Fair. Does anyone know what the word fair is? We were in a class of first graders. Say it again. You wanna be nice to people? Okay, good. What else?

To share. You wanna share with people? Absolutely, yes. And so when we were there with these first graders. So we're going to be looking at all different situations on fair and what it means to be fair. They were being asked to answer questions like It is not fair because With the swings. When do you feel like something isn't fair? I was like, can I have some tips? And then she was like, No. How does it feel? He likes it.

Fair to other people. When someone's being fair. Is what? Tell me about it. How's it feel when someone's not being fair? How should we talk about these feelings? Or like one time when I was at the mall we also visited a classroom of fifth graders. I saw people like kicking A boy. Who are doing a lesson on bullying. How do you recognize bullying? How do you call out bullying? What do you do when you see bullying?

Helps the situation. Upstand or upstand. Oh my gosh, that's like they talk about that. I know they totally invented that since we were kids. But I think what this is. is a continuation of what John was trying to do by pulling psychology into education. It does feel like a continuation. Yeah. But whereas John was focused on the self, like self-value, self-worth, self-esteem.

What's happening now is focused on the other. And now this is fair because everyone will be getting what they It's about understanding other people's needs. Communicating your own needs. Stop being mean to him. It's about identifying emotions, communicating emotions. Or just or just walk away.

It's group morning meetings, it's conflict resolution, it's learning how to make I statements like I feel blank. It's also like don't bully. What is fairness? Like there's a kind of like we're in a community of people element of it. I like that. But so Okay.

One of the kind of amazing things about this is how weirdly Jennifer Well, we have should be careful about the kind of praise that we give. The researcher who spent her entire career looking at self-esteem. kind of wound up in the same place for herself as like the schools have. What do you mean? So then what is I mean, well so I asked Jennifer, I was like, I feel like there's sort of you know things that being a kid in the nineties, I still have this question of like

But how do you feel good? It is good to feel good about yourself. So n how does one find self worth in a way that's healthy? I think by n not worrying about it. So what does that look like? So am I a person of worth and value? It's just it's not a helpful question. Hm. It just doesn't do anything for you to ask that question or for other people. And uh a much better or or more helpful question is How do I want to be right now?

What how might I support other people, for example? Um, but really what contribution, what thing that's larger than me? is important to me. So she told us about one of the studies she did. It was looking at roommates. College roommates. Two roommates who didn't know each other. Before the start of their first year in college. And we asked each roommate a whole bunch of questions about their relationship over time and their self-esteem. And what we found was that when roommates

were responsive to the so I'm gonna call them roommate A and roommate B because they're same sex. It gets confusing. So when roommate A is responsive to roommate B's needs, Roommate B notices. And is responsive in return. And then roommate A is responsive again to roommate B. And then roommate B is responsive again to roommate A. So you can get this virtuous cycle going on in relationships where When people are focused not on their own needs.

but on being responsive to other people's needs. Other people notice it, they appreciate it, their esteem for the other person goes up. It ends up having it's not a huge impact, but nonetheless having a significant impact.

The self esteem of the person who was responsive in the first place. So, so the way to boost your self esteem in a way that, in my view, is Sustainable over time and good for the world is to focus on the well-being of other people or to organizations or institutions or things you really care about. Basically, what John was after. I know. Like if you could get people to understand they had self-worth, self-value, raise their self-esteem, they would do all these things for each other. Yeah.

Just that self-esteem is the wrong place to focus. Because you don't have to have high self-esteem to make a difference. And with that, I feel that I have clearly been vindicated and validated. No, you haven't, Matt. Yeah. The whole point is not to try and feel good about yourself. Yeah, she's talking about needs, seeing needs. Yeah, other people's needs. Like well, needing to be told that you did a great job jumping in a cold lake was not.

Still here. So you both now have interpreted this Rorschach thing that she said. Is meaning that you're right and you've been right all along and what was the point of any of this? I mean I'm uh Jen's convinced me. I just feel like you're being incredibly you're you're being very resistant to just sort of A basic level of human kindness. Okay. Fine. Then I will suggest that we end this episode on a positive note. And what's the positive note? Great job, everybody.

This episode was reported by Heather Radke and Matt Kilty. Matt Kiltey with additional sound design by Jeremy Bloom and edited by Pat Walters. Original music by Ben Batchelder, voice acting by David Gable and Dan Fank. In fact checking by Angeli Mercado and Anna Pujol Mazzini. It was mixed by Jeremy Bloom. Thanks to Charlotte Engrav as well as the teachers and students. P.S. two twenty nine in Queens and our self esteem of the nineties kids.

Noah and I name is Five Lun. I'm from Los Angeles, California. I'm Teddy. I'm ten years old. Goss, I am eight. My name is Arlo and I'm sixteen. My name is Eleanor and I am six years old. She is all my... Five years old. Mine. My age is five. Okay. My name is William and I am eight years old. Is there anything else you'd get a gold medal for, bud? Among your friends? Among your classmates and stuff? What else? Hiding. Hiding? Yeah. Yeah. And like a really good hider and hiding other things?

That's it from us. And listening and responding to listeners' needs, uh we are gonna post another episode in this feed next week. Catch you then. Bye bye bye. Hi, I'm Alyssa Mahoney from Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania. Here are the staff credits.

Radio Lab is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser. Soren Wheeler is our executive editor. Sarah Sandback is our executive director. Our managing editor is Pat Walters. Dylan Keith is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Jeremy Bloom, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhu Nanasambandan, Matt Kealti, Mona Makaker, Annie McEwen, Alex Neeson, Sarah Kari, Rebecca Rand, Anisa Vizza,

Ariane Wack, Molly Webster, and Jessica Young. Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, Natalie Middleton, Angeline Mercado, and Sophie Samae. Foundation. This is Ira Flaydo, host of Science Friday. For over thirty years, the Science Friday team has been reporting high quality science and technology news, making science fun for curious people, by covering everything from the outer reaches of space to To the rapidly changing world of AI, to the tiniest microbes in our bodies.

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