Gretchen Rubin || “Questioning” the Four Tendencies

introduce my guests for today, Gretchen Ruben. Gretchen is the author of several books, including the New York Times bestsellers Better Than Before, The Happiness Project, and Happier at Home. She has an enormous readership both in print and online, and her books I've sold almost three million copies worldwide and more than thirty languages. On our popular weekly podcast, Happier with Gretchen Rubin, she just us as good habits and happiness. With our sister Elizabeth Kraft, they've been called

the click and Clack of podcasters. Gretchen's podcast was named in iTunes list of Best Podcasts of twenty fifteen and was named in the Academy of Podcasters Best Podcasts of twenty sixteen. Congratulations Gretchen and all. Oh, well, thank you. I'm very happy to be talking to me today. I'm very happy to talk to you too. And I should add your latest book is The Four Tendencies, which is going to be the topic of discussion for today. It's

also congratulations on the release of the new book. Quite a few really impactful creative projects, and I really like the Happiness Project and it does tales quite nicely with my course, so there's kind of a nice congruence there. So, I mean, let's first talk about this pattern of your interest. So you spend year studying happiness and habits. So are you only interested in things to start with h or is there any the greater pattern there? Yeah? Yeah, I'm

committed to a literation now. Really my subject, which also starts of age, is human nature. You know, I've written nine books I had written. The Happy to Project was like my fourth book, and from the outside they all look very different from each other. But really what it is is I'm just constantly trying to understand human nature. Why are we the way we are? What allows us to change? Why do we do the things we do and we don't do the things that we want to

do or think we ought to do. So happiness is part of that, habits is part of that, and the four tendencies. I discovered it as I was trying to understand patterns and how people behaved. So it's really human nature is my deep subject. Well, we definitely bond over that's for sure. Yeah, so I want to really unpack what you mean by that you discovered this. I took your test. Okay, so I am a questioner. Ah, okay.

So there is a quiz for people who want to take it at happiercast dot com slash quiz where people can find out it'll tell you what your tendency is. Though usually I have to say people can tell what they are from a very brief description. Like if I just described the four people can pick out themselves and other people pretty easily because they're very stark. It turns out pretty obvious. Yeah, we'll do. We'll go through all

four of them. So I am a questioner according to your test, and it says something very interesting you wrote. You said, if you're thinking, well, right now, I question the validity of the four tendencies framework. Yep, you're a questioner and not only a questioner, but a scientist. Not all scientists are questioners. Oh that's so interesting. Yeah, and

this is really something. So the four tendencies have to do with how you respond to expectations, ad our expectations like a work deadline, and inner expectations like your own desire to keep it in your resolution. So let's say

you're a questioner. We could line up fifty questioners and they would look completely different from each other, depending on how ambitious they were, how intellectual they were, how considered of other people's feelings they were, how adventurous they were, how controlling they were, how neurotic they were, how extroverted or introverted they were, they'd be very different in a

lot of different ways. They'd look very different, but as to how they would feel if you asked or told them to do something, or if they asked or told themselves to do something in that way, they would be alike. If you're a questioner, you're thinking why should I? That's your first question, is you're telling me to do this? I'm telling myself to do this, Well, why should I? In that way, they would be the same. So I have a friend who's a doctor. She's a research scientist.

She's incredibly analytical, she's tremendously intellectually curious, and she's an obliger because if you ask, you know, she readily meets out her expectations. That struggles to meet in her expectations, and that's what makes somebody an obliger. So this doesn't explain a lot of things about you. It only explains one very narrow thing, but it turns out to be something that is pretty significant, just presuib So if you're a scientist, you'll also question the validity of any framework,

not just your framework, but probably you're trained to do that. Yeah, anything, you're trained because of the scientific method. So that's why I really want to unpack how did you just like, what do you mean when you say discover this? And in sort of what mode? Because was it through the scientific method or some other method? You know what it

was through? Just trying to understand patterns that I saw among people that I was just seeing around me because in my book, better than before, I identify the twenty one strategies of habit change. These are the twenty one strategies that people use to make or break their habits. But as I was talking to people, about habit change. There were certain things that people would say to me

that I would be like, that's interesting. So, Like, one thing that was really striking to me was that I would often say to people, how do you feel about New Year's resolutions? This is a good way to get at people's thinking about habits, And a certain number of people would always answer the same way. They would say, I would keep a resolution whenever it made sense, but I wouldn't worry about January first, because January first is

an arbitrary date. They were all very focused on this idea of it being arbitrary, and this kind of caught my attention because I was like, the arbitrariness of January first never really bothered me. Another thing that people would say to me is how come busy parents like us can't take time for ourselves? And I think, huh, I'm a busy parent, but I don't have any trouble taking time for myself. And then there were people I was

writing a book about habits. There were people who'd be like, why would you want to write a book about habits? Habits are dreadful, They're so repellent. Why would you I want to even think about habits, And I thought, that's funny, because I love the idea of habits. For me, the idea of habits is exciting and exhilarating and energizing. And yet these people were like really turned off by the idea of habits. Why were they reacting in a way that was different from the way I was reacting. I

was trying to make sense of it. Then I had a friend who said something and again like, this is me. This is me like Samuel Johnson or La Rochefuko. This is just me looking at human nature by looking at what I see around me. A friend of mine said, this was like one of the big Eureka moments was a friend of mine said, I know I would be happier if I exercise. And when I was in high school, I was on the track team and I never missed track practice. So why can't I go running now? Well?

Why not? There are many hypotheses you can have about that. But what I realized is I think it's because she's an obliger. She readily meets out her expectations, but she struggles to meet in her expectations, which is the definition of obliger. When she had a team and a coach waiting for her, no problem. When she was just trying

to do it on her own, she struggled. So what this framework did is it explained these many, many patterns which I sensed were somehow connected, but it took me a long long time to figure out how they were connected. Once you see that the core element is response to inter and out or expectations, that sort of a lot of things make sense that don't otherwise really make sense.

Because here's the question that people grapple with is like, you know, you would be healthier and happier and more energetic and live longer if you took your medication, but like you're not doing that. Why not? I mean, it's just like this is like a billion, billion, billion dollar question. Why not? I think I have an answer for that

that's different from what a lot of people say. My framework explains a lot of patterns that you see in people around you once you see these four tendencies in play. So I just created it, you know. I gotta say, though, it's kind of weird to me that no one else has picked up on this before. As far as I have, I can tell they haven't because it's so obvious. Once you know it, but researchers, now there's just at a journal article was published for medical adherents that they should

study it. And a guy Judson Berger, who studies addiction and mindfulness and have a change, he's using it in his research and experiments and how it helps people use programs that he's developing to help people. So there is research being done to trying to validate what I just kind of concluded. So let me be the scientific jackass for a second. So I think that you create a potentially meaningful framework that is worthy of further than investigation.

I would say all that the reason why the scientific method exists those because lots of people see patterns that are wrong, like people see Jesus in toast, you know, like people see things among their friends and say I think I figured out a pattern of human nature and then they test it and it's like wrong. So it seems like you're validing the scale to the extent to which it resonates with your audience and helps them in

your own personal life. It seems to me that's your criterion for validation, and that may serve the purpose of your audience more than enough. But of scale validation requires a whole extensive you know, reliability, and I don't think and you would not disagree with anything that I just said,

no, no no, no no, and I don't. I certainly don't make any claims for it to have it other than you know, the proof is in the pudding, like if it works for you and helps you make beneficial to change it, which is one of the reasons I don't make claims for it beyond what I've seen. You know, I did a representative sample, and I concluded certain things from the representative sample, but that's certainly not like some big, huge,

you know, study of it. So absolutely I would welcome people to study for it, and I'm excited that people are starting to do that because you know, I would love to see it stand up to that kind of scrutiny. Though, as you say, for a lot of things, for lay people, things sometimes things ring true. You know, there's the astrology in the astronomy. I don't think this is astrology, but I would like to get the validation that would really

do it. But then sometimes things, if they shine a spotlight on something to you that feels hidden, that's useful or that gives people a vocabulary to talk about things in a way that's kind of you know, less emotionally or less judgmental. Then there's value to that too, But you're absolutely correct about the what are the claims of

science here? So modern personality psychology has pretty much concluded that continuous variation is much more meaningful than types and talking about types, because you when you talk about types, you lose all the variation in between people at all different points in the spectrum. And then they've also concluded there are various independent dimensions, meaning that you can score

extremely high on more than one dimension. Yeah, so I'm wondering how you square those two personality psychology findings with positing that there are these four types that you can really only be dominant in one of them. Well, that's a great question. So one of the things is that I really do believe that people fit into a core tendency,

but each tendency overlaps with two other tendencies. So like if you're a questioner, questionners resist outer and inner I think they they resist outer expectations but they meet inner expectations. So in that way, they're like upholders and that they both meet inner expectations. And they're also like rebels and that they resist outer expectations. And so a questioner can be more like an upholder, so there's more variation that way, or they can be more like a rebel, and that's

going to shape the way their tendency goes. Now, another thing is a lot of frameworks where people are when they're looking at types. These are types that are trying to explain who like people's whole personalities, which I'm definitely not trying to do. This is one question, how do you respond to expectations? This is all that I'm telling

you about yourself. Now, there might be if we have the scientists do it, it could be associated things like there might be our rebels less likely to be considerate or more likely to be considerate. I don't know, you know, let me look. Let me see if I can guess right now based on Okay, upholder might be in the Big five. I'm going to wink it to the big five frames. So the Big five is interesting, right, because the big the Big five is one of the things

that really inspired me here because fun conscientiousness. Yeah, I'm on a pold. Can I just say the frameworks other people know what we're talking about. That's great, let's back out the second. Let me let me just back up and say, talk about what we're talking about. So there's upholders, questioners, obligers, and rebels, and it has to do with how you respond to an outer expectation like a work deadline, or an inner expectation like a New Yark re solution. So

upholders readily meet outer and inner expectations. They want to meet the work deadline, they want to meet the new year's resolution, and they do that without much fuss. They want to know what's expected of them, but their expectations for themselves are just as important. Next questioners, which is what you are. Questioners question all expectations. They'll do something if they think it makes sense. They resist anything arbitrary, unjustified, inefficient.

So they're making everything an inner expectation. If it meets their standard, they will meet that expectation. If it fails their standard, they will resist. Next to bligers, and this is my friend on a track team. Obligers readily meet outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations. And so when she had a team and a coach waiting for her, she had no trouble showing up to go running when she was just trying to go running on

her own. She struggled and then finally rebels. Rebels resist all expectations. Out are an inner alike. They want to do what they want to do in their own way, in their own time, and if you ask or tell them to do something, they're very likely to resist. Now, obliger is the largest tendency from my observation from this representative sample that I did. You either are an obliger, you have many obligers in your life. They're the rock of the world. They're the biggest tenants. Next questioner is

also a very big category. Rebel is the smallest and then also only slightly larger as a polder, which is my tendency, which is one of the reasons why I think I saw this framework because many things that people said they believed to be true. I was like, that's not true for me. I don't get it, Like what's your problem? Like why can't other people just get stuff done? Like I was puzzled by other people what other people said and did, And I think that helped me see it.

Now that I know I'm an a polder, I understand myself and the world so much better now about the Big Five. One of the things that it always puzzled me about the Big Five is conscientiousness. Now, as an upholder, I'm a highly conscientious person. I readily meet outer and inner expectations. I'm as conscientious as they get, you know. And what puzzled me was all the people who seemed to me to be like sort of conscientious, because it

wasn't like they were kind of conscientious. It was like, sometimes to my in my estimation as an upholder, they were very conscientious, but then in other times they were utterly non conscientious. Because to an upholder, failing to meet your ex expectations for yourself it is just as important as failing to meet someone else's expectation. You not keeping your resolution to go for a run, to me seems just as important and just as significant as the fact

that you're not meeting a deadline at work. So it was puzzled by all these people who have these kind of patchiness to me and their conscientiousness. I couldn't figure it out. It didn't make sense to me. Well, now it makes perfect sense, because they're meeting outer expectations but struggling with inner expectations, but sometimes they've like figured out ways to create outer expectations around their inner expectations. So take me a while to understand how that works. It's

clear once you figure it out. It's hard before the patterns got sort of elucidate. Gotcha, this is what I think is going on. I just mapped it out while you were talking. This is what I think. And again like I don't know this. I mean, I want to do the study. I want to do the study where I love to see how they kind of if they break out into these four factors, if you do a factor analysis. But I'm also curious how it correlates with

the ten aspects of the Big Five. So my colleague calling the young Crits and then called the Beef, which splits each one of the Big five into two components. And I just mapped each of your four onto the very specific component of each Big five. Oh okay, let me tell you. So the upholder is the orderliness aspect of conscientiousness. Conscientiousness actually has two facets, orderliness and industriousness.

So industriousness is like grit and like you know, the drive to really succeed, whereas orderliness is the drive to have order in your life, and so I would predict that upholder would be most strongly correlated with orderliness facet of conscientiousness, well, both of them, perhaps perhaps actually, but I but you see a lot of gritty people are not really interested in upholding anything. Yeah, So, now, questioner, that's specifically the intellectual curiosity aspect of openness to experience.

You think it's different. Now, Okay, it's interesting because one of the things that you often see in questioners is that if you have a non intellectual questioner, they show up as a crackpot. So, like I wrote aloud, John F. Kennedy, and so I spend a lot of time with people who like, we're really into conspiracy theory, and I'm like, to me, now that's questioner kind of for someone who's not actually very intellectual. To me, again, you're a scientist. I would love to see what you did with this.

But to me, every framework has its own nuance, and trying to map everything onto everything else you kind of lose it or you might kind of overvalue certain things. Like questioners are often like, well, I'm smart, I'm intellectual, and I'm like, not necessarily because you could be a questioner but also be very ignorant and not interested in information beyond what you already believe to be true totally.

So the openness to experience the mean consists of two aspects, which prompts with the intellectual cures as well as the non intellectual So that's the second facet is there's intellect and then there's openness, which is openness is your tendency. And I'm not sure questioners are necessarily even Again, neither of us know the answer until I do study. I want to do the study. This is my theory, and then hopefully I can you the study and tell you know what's going on. So obliger seems to be most

link to the politeness aspect of agreeableness. Agreeableness has that's fine, Like if you say no, like I could be totally wrong, and I admit that I could be totally wrong. But this is the clost What I'm doing is like giving me the closest approximation to the Big five. And maybe you actually find that your scale has additional variants. It's not explained. It's just a lot of obligers are big jerks. Oh interesting, Okay, elaborate laboration, Andre you know who's a

great I don't know. If you read open Andrea Agascy's memoir, it is a brilliant memoir. I am not interested in tennis at all. I barely heard of Andrea Agassy, but people said you should read it because its memoir. He's an absolute, absolute, one hundred percent obliger, you know, and no one could be like a more aggressive kind of I think in many ways, difficult person need to find obliger for me. Again, so obliger readily meets outer expectations,

but they struggle to meet inner expectations. That's interesting. Yeah, No, I like said, like I had to add, oh, I was going out with Brooksfields and I had to ask her to marry me because she really wanted to get engaged. That wouldn't happen to an upholder, gotcha. No, So I think this otter inner distinction. I do think there's there's something there. I want to be very clear. I want to give you credit, you know, first of all, and I love your push. I'm not trying to be a jerk. No, no,

no, no no, I love it. I love the thing you really engage with it. This is exciting, So keep going because I'm a personality psychologist, So you know, I want to with, Okay, the rebel I would link to disagreeableness. I would put that within the agreeableness to mean to most likely. But you're saying it's not just disagreeableness. There's

more too. Some rebels are highly considerate. And I have to say, because I'm an a polder and a polder is like the opposite of rebels, it was hard for me to like wrap my mind around the rebel tendency. And I talked to a lot of people who like the adalt a lot in there, like we're either married or we're partnered because with rebels about how they dealt with it. And the fact is, some rebels are really highly considerate and really put a value. I mean, they're

always choosing what to do. They're not doing because they're supposed to do. They're not doing because you told them to doing because they choose to do it. But many of them do will do it because they're choosing to do it out of love for you, or because it's

the kind of person they want to be. They see themselves as being like a responsible leader who is interested in bringing everybody into the team, or they see themselves as being a loving, consistent parent, and so even though they don't want to show up to something like carpool at the same time every day, they will because that's

the kind of person they want to be. Now, if you take a rebel who's not considerate, that person can be a big, big, big jerk because you can't make them do anything, and if they don't care what you think, like, they can take that pretty far. And that's very conspicuous. So we're all very aware of people like that. But some rebels are highly considered of other people and have really really high ideals and so they don't necessarily look disagreeable.

But if you said, hey, would you do this because I tell you too, they'd be like, I'm not going to do it because you told me to. Go cha, you're not the blasphemy. Yeah, So it depends on other

things come into play. Yeah, So it seems to be like rebel is more linked to a need for autonomy and authenticity, Yes, which is actually more part of the openness to experience demean It's part of the demean So the thing about the Big ten framework that I'm talking about is that it's fully acknowledged in personalized psychology that you can have blends. That's why this type way of thinking is not discussed too much in the personality psycholic

literature because you acknowledge it. Even among these ten you can have blends. So maybe one of these four are actually blends of two others. And you even read it, and see what if you think that my explanation accounts for that sufficiently? Well, your book. I read your book. I read your book. Okay, yeah, I read it, and

I think that some of them are blends. But I would say this, like, you know, there's great value in bringing up a term or reframing something in a way that resonates with in a way that has never resonated with anyone before, and no one's ever been inspired like Susan Kan, who's a mutual friend of ours, you know, has I've worked with the Quite Revolution trying to validate scales of introversion and stuff, and you know, Susan really brought to the floor what I would argue a blend

of Big five traits that she's calling introversion, but which resonates with a lot of people. So she's not just talking about introversion in terms of the Big Five way of talking about but she also brings in things like neuroticism, like rumination and things that are open and daydreaming and imagination which comes from openness to experience. But it's a blend.

It's a label, that's a blend. I think that you probably have come up with a label for a blend of different things that have already been Like, are you arguing that you've discovered a new source of human personality variation that has never been discovered in the last hundred years in personality psychology? I mean, is that your argument? Kind of because I don't feel like anybody else is

sufficiently accounted for these huge patterns. Well that's interesting. Why is it that somebody never misses a work deadline, but you know, can't quit sugar? You know, I mean, why not? It just like, why not if it's a matter of conscientiousism? Why not? If it's a matter of something making sense?

Why not? If it's a matter I mean, what I'm saying is that it explains frustrations, explains differences among people, and it tells you how to solve Because what I'm like, if this is your problem and you're a questioner, this is what I would think would work. If this is your problem and you're an obligered this is what I

would think it would work. I agree, it sounds totally improbable. Also, the greatest minds in history, I mean, for thousands of years, I've been thinking about this, So it's incredibly unlikely that I'm the first one to think it. But it does seem like I'm talking about it, at least in a different enough way that it's shining a spotlight on something that, for many people is a useful illumination of a pattern

that puzzled them, for instance. And sometimes it's just like somebody will say something to me like, oh, my kid is super smart and he does great on the test, and he'll study for the test, but he refuses to do the homework so he gets bad grades. And I'm like, Yeah, does your teacher tell your kid that he to ask too many questions? Yeah? Does your kid constantly like ask you justification for every single thing that you ask him to do? Yes, I'm like, Okay, probably your kid is like,

why should I memorize the multiplication table? Set? Doesn't make any sense on my phone, I can do all this multiplication doesn't make any sense for me to memorize it, so I'm not going to. So I'm like, explain to him what this makes sense. Take five minutes and explain to this kid, this is why we think you should do it. Because, by the way, if there's no good reason, why does he have to memorize and the multipication tables.

That's a question that's beneficial to all of us. Why are you learning how to do cursive Maybe you should, maybe you shouldn't a good question. If you don't have an answer to that, then maybe he shouldn't have to do it. But you have to give them the robust explanations, and then when they get those robust explanations, a lot of times it's much easier for them to fulfill that. So that's what I'm just arguing. It's kind of a

useful shortcut. Okay, So you claim two things. So there's the claim that the framing that you've come up with is beneficial to lots of people, and that's a separate claim than the scientific claim that you discover a new source of personality variation. Those are two different claims. I think the former is much more likely. I think if you're right about the ladder, and you could be right by the way, of course, right, I don't know. I haven't done the study. But if you're right, that's actually

a really big deal in personality. Like, let's not be flippant about Oh yeah, I just discovered a new source of person I mean that is like a really really big deal that requires a lot of convincing peer review journals, using all the standard measures that have existed, and showing that it predicts outcomes above and beyond you know, studying the scientific method, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You just did. They make the claim that it was scientifically valid.

You just did. I said, do you think you discovered a source of variation that's never been a discovered scientist?

I thought you meant like I didn't know that you meant like that you thought that that I was arguing that this was you know, no, because there's a million frameworks that have been created, right, Okay, So you're not making that second claim then, I mean not in the way you put it now, Okay, Okay, good, because that would be a really big deal and I'm actually inclined to test it and see, you know, if the test predicts lots of important outcomes in life like well being

and and etcetera, etcetera, above beyond. So I think it's interesting. It's interesting about well being though, because to me it seems like it's not that one is better or that it's like, have you figured out how to work with the reality of your tendency so that you get where you want to go? And so it's just a question of you know, it's not like, oh, it's got to be a polder than ebliger. It's like, oh, have you figured out a way to harness the strength of your

tendency and offset the weaknesses and limitations. So you could say that both of them has strengths and weaknesses, But can't we agree there are some personality traits that have more weaknesses and strengths in terms of kind of universal prediction of maladaptive adaptive outcomes. I mean, when we got you say put neuroticism on the same as agreeableness and say no, no, no no, no, no no no. I didn't

mean it like that. I meant up to tendencies. Like some people are like, well, what's the best tendency to be? And I'm like, it's like it just depends because first of all, it depends on everything else going on along in your personality exactly. Throw impulsivity in there. That's bad, Like I don't to me, I'm like, and maybe that's my upholder self. I'm like, you do not want that threat if you can avoid it, you know, impulsivity. But I thought you were saying, like, is there one tendency

that is the better? And I'm like, the of the four tendencies, you see if youeople are really really happy and very successful and productive and creative and efficient, and then some people aren't. And part of it is like how does it fit in with everything else in parts of your personality all the things that you listed, and also have you figured out ways to deal with it? So, if you're a questioner and you keep getting fired because you say to your boss all the time, like why

do you keep implementing these dumb strategies? Or like why do you keep making these stupid decisions, you know, some questioners learn to say things like it's very interesting that

you picked that software. I would love for I would love to hear about your reasons because I think if I understand why you chose it, I'm going to do a much better job implementing it Like that's like that questioner has learned how to be constructive in the way that he or she is asking questions, whereas some questioners are just like this is you know, like how do you possibly justify this in a way that makes others feel defensive or undermined. So there's a lot of different

things that can come into play. And like you say, this is one near aspect of personality. So yeah, if you're very agreeable, very ambitious, you know, highly extroverted, all these things, you're just going to end up in a different place than somebody who has a different mix. I appreciate that. I appreciate that you want to add the context aspect to it. Well, it's not that it's I mean, it's the context of the other aspects of your personality.

Because it could be like if you did your research and I would love if you did your research it and like looked at it. It might be that upholders are more associated with certain things, or like rebels are less likely to be X y Z. That would be fascinating to know. I don't know it at a deep enough level. The only thing that I picked up was that it did And again my study was not at all to your standards. This is just a representative sample

that I did for my own purposes. But one of the things that was interesting is that upholder seemed less likely to answer yes to I have struggled with addiction? Does addiction even exist? That's controversial, but I use the word addiction. Didn't say anything more that it looked like there's something about being an a polder that makes it

less likely that people struggled with addiction. I have to say as an upholder, that makes sense to me, you know, but it would be fascinating to see, like does it actually play out Our upholders less likely to be addicted, our questioners more likely to be YZ. I don't know. That is the kind of thing. You are absolutely correct. You would only be able to assert that if you did the kind of super rigorous analysis that would allow you to support those kind of lines. Yeah, as well.

But I also think like positive that there are four different types means that if we find there are four different dimensions that are independent of each other in a factor analysis, that means that they can interact. And not only can they interact, but these four you can score

high or low on any of them. So is there a value in saying you only have one out of the four that's the dominant one, as supposed to saying you could actually be equally as high in two them, Like why can't you be equally as high in being rebellious in questioner? Well, then you're a questionner slash rebel. I mean, then you're either a questionner tips to rebel or rebel hoo tips to questioner. But you know, a lot some of them are inconsistent, Like you can't be

inn a polter and a rebel. You can't be an a polter and an obliger because upholders and obliger is like, in some ways they're very much like, but then there's a fundamental difference. So I sort of argue that kind of just okay, if they're logically, if they're saying, if they're necessarily a post to each other, they're actually on the same dimension, they're not independent dimensions. I think you're thinking that I'm arguing scientifically something that I'm really arguing

much more like Samuel Johnson would argue. You know, I'm not trying to pretend that you know, I've got a lab at Stanford with a bunch of undergraduates who have been eating marshmallows. And that's how I came up with this. I came up with this because people kept saying to me, Wow, you did this happiness project. How did you get yourself to do those things? And I'm like, well, I just decided that they would make me happier, so I did them. And people are like, but how did you get yourself

to do them? I'm like, that's not Why is that so hard? Why is that so hard? So you know what I mean, it's very much. I don't I don't want to pretend that I'm making claims for it, or that I'm employing the same kind of thinking about it that someone like you would with your very specialized background. I don't want to come across here as though like I think I'm somehow superior because I'm a scientist. I don't think you do. And I don't want to make that very clear. This is not personal. So I want

to know the truth. And you know, and I mean, you said you don't make those guns, but I read like test your personality. You wrote something you said like my very well researched you know, paradigm and use language like I discovered, you know, and when we use that kind of language in science that has a very specific meaning. Well, I use the word discover. I mean that doesn't seem

that scientifically. I mean, it's well researched in that. I mean, I don't know, what do you I mean, I certainly did not pretend that this was like went through the kind of thing it's not meant to be that. Maybe it could be that you could do the research that would make it be, or somebody else could, or there's been a call for people to do that research. That's not where it is right now. You know, to me,

things are helpful if they are actually useful. And one of the things that's true is that a lot of times with specialists, I mean I know this because I read all this stuff, it's practically incomprehensible. I mean, it's like it becomes it's very hard for other people to understand what they're talking about. And so, you know, I'm trying to write something or I'm trying to understand something. I mean, I just keep coming back to Samuel Johnson

because he's really very much more my model. Well, let me ask you this, let me ask you this. You know you wrote something. You wrote explicitly, you said, I found a model that's very predictive. The thing is, what if I ran the study and I found that this test is not predictive of anything, Like would you be willing to rewrite your book? Sir, Well, I mean, yeah, I write update it. Yeah, absolutely, I really appreciate that. I would love to do that. I really appreciate that answer.

By the way, I really appreciate that, thank you, because you know, scientists are constantly revising their models, right, and I wonder like you made the claim in one of your articles I read You're like, I came up with a very predictive but you don't know if it's predictive until you've tested it. Yeah. Well, I'm not predictive in that. I like, if you tell me this, I can predict that. If you tell me you were like this is a kid,

I can think that you're like this. Now it's again, you know, I mean, I'm using words in a lay sense, and you're using them as like if this were scientific American. The word predictive has a lady and it has a very highly specific meaning, just the way neurotic means something of Wody Allen says it, and neurotic means something else to use it. It's extraversion, right, extraversion in the way the Big Five is. It is not the way Susan

Kine is using it. This is one of the problems with language is that it's all taking into account different contexts in different people's meanings. I am speaking to a lay audience. I'm a generalist writer who comes from an essay writing tradition, So I am not trying if I use a word that somehow sets off your ballas like ooh, this is a word that I would use to mean X y Z. I'm not necessarily meaning it to be as super specialized. I don't want you to think that

I'm making claims for it that I'm not. This is something that I've observed. This is something I see all around me. It explains a lot of things that I see, and it seems to resonate with a lot of people. I don't want to be seen to be making claims for it that I can't justify, or to have been leading people. I don't think. I don't think that most people reading this imagine that there is I think just in the way that I've written a book where it's

clearly like drawing from regular people in real life. It's much more again, it's much more like you know, La Rochefouco or Montaigne, you know, in nature in a kind of a you know, not not from the perspective of a scientific laboratory, but much more from a library. Yeah, and I think you're at your best when you do that. Not only at your best, but you're great at it. So I want to be clear, I really love the

Happiness Project. And what I like about it is you're taking your personal experiences and trying to make sense of science and applying it in your own life and telling people what worked for you, what didn't work for you. And I have to say, one of the things that's really stood me in good stead is that so much of the science that I might have relied upon has been disproven or attacked since. And so I'm very glad that I don't say, oh, well, I'm doing this because

of dopamine. That is creator I'm doing this study about super Bowl showed that because I'm like, man, I can't even keep up with all this stuff that now is being questioned or you know. So, yes, it's very much like this is yeah, I read this study, thought about it, like, tried it. Did you know, did this work? How did this work out for me? Yeah, I'm glad you said that. By the way, I can't stand scientific fundamentalists. Maybe I'm

trying to find some common ground here. I don't think that, you know, scientific fundamental would be someone who thinks that their study is right and that you know, they're so like what if someone else comes with some data that the contradicts their theory, they don't revise it, et cetera,

et cetera. I don't like that either. I think the kind of approach I'm trying to being here is like, you know, this book makes a very specific personality framework, and I'm in the business of testing personality frameworks, so I'm just curious to see if it's right. Yeah, that's fine. Well it's funny because when better than before. I talk about how I gave up carbs and I was talking to a friend of mine who'd, you know, read a ton of studies and kind of came to a different conclusion.

And I was like, but you know, I went low herb and I had this amazing result. And then my father went with carving. He had this amazing result. And my friend was like, Gretchen, that's to data point of one, and I'm like, that's the only data point I care about,

Like you know what I mean. I think sometimes people are like, you know, what if it works, Like if this is what it takes to like get me to write my novel or finish my PhD pieces, or quit sugar or get more sleep or you know, exercise or take my medication, or keep my kid from dropping out of high school or stop these like squabbles that I'm having with somebody in my life. It's like, there's value

to that. Now, there's absolutely scientific value, and I would love that, But I think that there's kind of a more blunt value that can come from the data point of one, which is like is that scientific? No, that's a data point one. But ultimately you don't want to have value too as many people as possible, though ultimately

that's your goal. Right. Oh It's funny because all the questionners are like, please do the scientific research though that we can feel good about this, And I'm like, okay, man, you know that's not my Like, I you know, I'm not the one who's going to write the grant for that but yeah, no, but I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I mean, I think you can use it for what you use it for, and then it has value to you or not, and then if it's scientifically validated, that

would be amazing. But yeah, I mean there's a lot of how do you account for these patterns? If you don't account for it this way, how do you account for it otherwise? Because it doesn't seem to me that the existing patterns do account for it, you know, or existing frameworks. I'm not really an asshole, I promise, Oh no, But then I'm not really a scientist. So I'm not speaking like don't don't, don't, don't try it. I'm I'm a lawyer, man, I'm working for Santurday O'Connor, and that's

you know, if you want to talk about. Yeah, the thing is, though, seeing patterns what's frustrating about being a science. This is my frustration about being a scientist. Almost every other day I have a new framework I invented. It's called a theory, yeah, and then I test it and most of the time I'm wrong. And I can't make that an ego thing for me personally, or else I would be upset every other day, you know what I mean. So I seeing patterns is just a fundamental human thing,

and writers see patterns, and writers good writers. I think you're a very good right and good writers are able to take observations and frame it in a way that really resonates with the reader. And you know, I think you've probably succeeded in doing that with this book. In order to actually see whether large set of patterns are correct, you need to do a very large sample because you may be only looking at a very narrow slice of patterns.

You might be missing out on a bigger pattern. And you just want to know that you can't expect one human mind to have figured it all out, you know like that, I mean, like I said, it would be really incredible if, through your own methods you have, and I think it's possible you have, and so I'm going to test it. That is really incredible. You know that you've discovered statistical patterns that hold up when you measure thousands and millions and millions of people, And and again

maybe you have, So I'm open to the possibility. But you also not have. But you're exactly right, I mean about sort of the demands put on scientists, and like, one of the things that I was writing about happiness is, you know, there's something like fifteen academic scientific definitions have happiness, and each each one more obscure and imfelicitous than the next. And I was just like, you know, I'm a lay person. I don't have to get into that. I'm just going

to say happiness. And if for you it's peace or contentment or you know, fulfillment or you know, well being and whatever whatever, for me, it's just like the looseness of it and the fact that it can encompass a lot of different kind of concepts of having this is fine, and it's actually a strength because we can all bring our own idea of happiness into it. I had a freedom that a scientist would not have, just to say I'm not going to define it, which again is my

lawyer self. I was like, I spend a semester arguing about the definition of contracts, so I was like, I will never do that again. I'm saving like I could say things like happiness doesn't always make you feel happy, now, a scientist couldn't say that it doesn't make any sense. It does make sense if you look at it from a literary standpoint, which is of course what I'm trying to do. So you're exactly right. Scientists are trying to

do one very specific thing. They are under rigors that others are not, and you know that's just we're all doing our own thing. You know, makes very jealous of you, I know, let me feel good, all hang out, let me ask you something, because I really do have appreciation for literature and poetry and great literature. I mean, I love it, and I love your writing. I think you're

a great trift writer. When emphasize that, you know, can you imagine like I actually just recently made this big decision in my life that I am going to be a writer, Like I'm leaving academia and I know, I know, I want to be on social media. I miss it. That's announced it to my Facebook group. I haven't doubted in public yet, but I guess now I just did for the first time in my podcast. Right, All right,

Well that's a big decision. So now that I've said that I'm a writer, does that mean I'm no longer accountable to anything I was accountable to before with my scientific colleagues. No, you know, so it's tricky for me. You know, I'm still in my writing. I'm still trying to link everything I say to studies that I conduct or that I read in the literature. Does changing my framing automatically change, you know, my standards that I have

to uphold. I think these are really complex issues that we haven't really grappled with as and now I want to be I want to enter more their train of popular science writer. And I think it's a tricky, tricky thing, you know, I don't know. I think we should all have more open, honest conversations about this stuff. Well, you know, you read someone like I read someone like George Orwell. Okay, you know that's my model. So that's where I'm coming from.

So part of it is what is your identity, what are you trying to achieve and what's necessary to achieve it? And how are you communicating whatever it is you want to communicate to people. So George Orwell's discovers things in the same way that you say you discover things through observation and experiences with your readership. Just his deep insight into human nature, I mean, he just says things about human nature where I'm like, I had never seen that before.

Now I see it. You're showing me complexities in the world that I had never perceived before. You're showing me thoughts that I had that I didn't know I had. I feel like everything is clearer now. And same thing with Samuel Johnson. Now is Samuel john I mean, he's a he's an eighteenth century writer. He's not for everyone, you know. I talk about him a lot because he's a big influence on me. He's not for everyone, you know, even something like Life of Johnson, which is very accessible

by Johnson's standards. But I read I read Johnson, and I'm like light bulbs exploding in my head, lightning bolts, striking me with, you know, understanding nature In one sentence, he can he can, you know, capture an idea that seems so complex, you know? And then I'm like, Oh, I just read a science you know, a research paper that was thirty pages long that was sort of groping towards the same conclusion. Is it validated? No? Is it proved in any kind of real way? No? But I

feel this elucidation. It seems to me like science writers, popular science writers don't have to be correct. They can be other insightful. Well, I don't know what you mean by correct, because correct means that you're either correct or you're incorrect. Oh yeah, might be scientifically validated or not scientific. Realistically, it can be something. I mean, I think correctice binary. I actually agree with you, and I'm mad at myself for saying that that was a bad bad my podcast.

You write it, we were writing this, we would just correct it. What I what I mean is more truthiness, I mean more true than more true than not. Like science is never about you never find the truth. You find you such probabilities that something's more along the line of being correct or not. It's not fine. It's just like the truth of Anakarina is anakarina true? It's more in peace true, It's to the lighthouse true point. I mean, I don't know, it's not. It's not really relevant if

it's true. It's like, do I come out of it thinking like I have like a deeper, richer experience of human nature? Do I understand myself that and other people better? Do I feel like I come to the world with more understanding and empathy? Do I feel like things that like large trends in history, the history of ideas now makes more sense to me, Like, do I feel like, you know, I understand like the past the presence of future in a different way. Yeah? Is it true? War

in piece is totally not true? True? Oh my god. I mean you can read hundreds of articles untrue. It is right because he didn't, you know. So these are all questions. It's like, what are you trying to do? Like? Was he trying to write a true account? No? Was he trying to write something that is truthful in some kind of novel way? Yes? And so I think it's all like what are you? What are you trying to do?

So for you, when you embark on your life as a full time writer, you'll have your own standard and your own sense of what it is that you want, what you want to accomplish in the standard that would be necessary to accomplish it. Does everybody have the same vision? No? Is everybody going to have? Is your way the right way? Not necessarily, but it's the right way for you and for the audience, Like that's what they'll come to see from you. I think I think you've raised a lot

of really interesting questions. Is one way the right way? And I think it's really interesting, you know, like the scientific method is the best way that has been discovered to systematically discover whether large patterns are true. I think. So here's a question for you. Is it better to get up early or not? If you want to get up and running, is it better to get up early and go running or is it better to wait? Right? It depends what It depends depends on the individual differences.

It depends on you, It depends on your situation, it depends on what's worth. I mean, it just depends. It's not that like, is it what are you right? I mean you could run a study and be like, the best height to be is five foot eight, That is the best height? What does that mean? Not? I mean not if you want to be a basketball player, not if you want to be a jockey, like you know, not if you want to be a ballerina. I mean whatever. It's like this idea that things are right, they're scientifically

validated the scientific method. In the end, trump's all. It's like for certain things. But certain things it's like they're not really in that system. I don't think because you could, I'm sure you could come up with an answer that would be the best answer. Would it be the best answer for me. Yeah, well data point one. Then I think that you bring to the table a very valuable perspective. So thank you for chatting with me today and letting

me just riff on these various important issues. Yeh know, it's super important and now more than ever like science, like yes, it's so important that it'd be done right and that it'd be held it helped be held to a high standard. Science is certainly not the only thing of value in this world. I want to be very clear. I have a deep appreciation for I said literature quote all these ways of getting insights into human nature gain insights to myself, and I think you're very good at that.

So thank you so much for chatting with me today. It was so fun to talk to you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to The Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this episode just as thought provoking as I did. If something you heard today stimulated you in some way, I encourage you to join in the discussion at the Psychology podcast dot com. That's the Psychology Podcast dot com.