Todd Rose (Part II) || Collective Illusions

Prior to Populace, Todd was a faculty member at Harvard University, where he founded the Laboratory for the Science of Individuality and he directed the Mind, Brain and Education Program. Todd is the best selling author of Dark Horse and The End of Average, and his most recent book, which is the topic of this second part for the podcast, is called Collective Illusions. For this part of the interview, I talked to Todd Rose about this notion of collective illusions.

You know, humans are a tribal species prone to conformity, and in a lot of instances we act according to what our in group wants rather than what we want as individuals. Ironically, Todd's research shows that we make poor inferences about the majority consensus and that failing to recognize collective illusions can have negative consequences on our identities, relationships, values,

and society. To avoid falling into conformity traps, Todd encourages us to live congruent private and public lives that adhere to our personal convictions. Absolutely love this episode. Love this chat with Todd just as much as I like part one, which was about intelligence. I really like this notion of congruency, which is a topic that the humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers

talked about a lot. And as you all know, I'm a humanistic psychologist, so this really tickled my humanistic psychology side. So without further ado, I bring you Todd Rose. Hey, Todd, I wanted to talk to you about your new book, Collective Illusions as well. I know we had this amazing chat about intelligence, but I really want to cover this new idea. Why do you decide to write this book?

You know, look, it's interesting. You know, at my think tank, Populace, we do a lot of what's called private research, right getting around the effects of social distortion, try to get at what people really think. And you know, I had known about this phenomenon which we call collective illusions historically has been called things like pluralistic ignorance, the illusion of universality,

things like this. And because we'd known about it, we started asking people not only what they thought about certain issues,

but what they thought most people thought right. And what was so shocking it was that actually, the first time we ever did it was in like twenty fifteen, and it was almost like a throwaway question and we weren't even sure what would get And what we found over and over again since is that it almost doesn't matter what topic we ask about if it's socially important, it's like a coin toss whether we're wrong about what the

majority really believes. And so we're living in this time when these collective illusions may actually be one of the defining features of modern society. And as we can talk about they have such like damaging consequences for the end individual and the group. And I felt like this could no longer just be an academic conversation, like we need to have a conversation with the general public about this issue. So what is a collective illusion then? Right? So what's

the definition? Simply? They simply stated, right, collective illusions are situations where the majority in a group ends up going along with something that they don't privately agree with, simply because they incorrectly think that most other people in the group agree with it, And as a result, entire groups can end up doing things that almost nobody really wanted. Yeah, you say, here's a quote from you. You You say, when individuals conform to what they think the group wants, they

can end up doing what nobody wants. That is the collective illusions dark magic. I actually really like that quote. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly. Wow, there's some deeply ingreened things in our human psyche of tribalism that pull us in that direction, right, Like what can you explain the psychological mechanisms why that

draw is so powerful? Yeah? So, look, it's funny because you'd imagine if you accept that this is pretty widespread, and we can talk about all the evidence for that, the question is and why, like why are we so susceptible to being spectacularly wrong about the group and then end up like making something true that never was true?

And it's really like two underlying mechanisms, right, So the first is this conformity bias, which that's not very novel, Like we know, we've known for a long time that is a species humans or a conforming species, right, like, and so as I read about in the book, I mean, study after study shows like it's not just a choice, like you are hardwired to all else EQL prefer to be with your group, not against it. It doesn't mean it doesn't mean you can't overcome it, but we definitely

have that preference. Right. In the book, I talked about one study which is my favorite, ones where you know even something like who you think is good looking? Right, which I kind of love because I always like to think about, like how did people get funding for certain kinds of studies like scanning people's brains and asking them showing them pictures of people and ask him to rate

them in terms of facial attractiveness. Felt like one that was hot or not right, like, only it was okay because on a five point scale instead of a binary. But you know, in that one, it was like they manipulated. They showed people images and you'd rate them like this one to five, and then they would then say, oh, here's what the the average of the group of people who have done this before. How they rate big And

that's not even a group you would care. Why would you care, right, and yet like systematically varying that so whenever your score individual score was consistent with the group, you would get that sort of dopamine reward response in the brain. They actually looked at the dopamine? Did they look at the dope wine flow? Not the flow? Unfortunately they're not as smart as you, Scott, But that'd be

the follow up. But what was also interesting is when you were told that your score deviated significantly from the group, it would trigger an error signal, right, which is the sort of re enforcement learning mechanism that hey, your behavior is wrong and change it. So like this happens all the time. Now, great, okay, so we're a conforming species.

That's again not new. What I think is interesting is and what's more relevant here is for conformity to work, whether you like it or not, you have to know what the group actually thinks, right, because otherwise what would you be conforming to? And this is the rub So like, as you know, the human brain is an energy hog like and you can learn a lot about a lot of our biases and problems from the kinds of shortcuts

the brain takes in the name of energy conservation. Well, it looks like, estimating group consensus is one of those shortcuts, right, because all it's equal, your brain tends to assume that the loudest voices repeated the most are the majority. And I think about that, I think, wow, it doesn't seem

like a good a good shortcut at all. But I guess if you go back through evolution and when most of our time was spent like seeming like the dumbbar number kind of you know, groups probably obviously had to work well enough, right to uh, to be here with us.

But now when you think about with social media and these massive imaginary communities like nations, where you're never going to meet more than a tiny, tiny percentage of the people in your group, that shortcut becomes problematic and we can talk about it like, I mean, social media in particular makes it very very easy to distort perceived group consensus. Yeah, and I think about Instagram and how everyone appears to be wanting to be famous. But this study that you

found that you reported on kind of blew my mind. Said, people think America ever won't be faus, but actually, in reality, Americas do not care about being famous. They think it's the north star for everyone else. But then that blew my mind, honestly, an we hadn't done We actually did that research. So we use these private opinion methods that

you just can't fake. So and we were looking at not just straight questions like do you want fame because people know you're not supposed to say yes to that, right, like, but you looked at trade off priorities across seventy six different attributes for what success could mean in a life. And the method just because I'm on the right podcast here, so I can, I can? We can? We brought it. It's called conjoin and it's widely used in business. So like here, I have an iPhone, right, I'm not just

plugging that. You know, nobody's stalking out. And you know, when you have to figure out what kind of combination of features and price point to put in a phone, you need to understand tradeoff priorities, right, So not just what people want, but what will they sacrifice for it? So we use that method looking at public opinion, right, like in this case privately, what do people whether trade off priorities for a good life? And what's so interesting?

Like everything okay? With this method rather than just asking you point blank, it's kind of cool. What we do is say, out of those seventy six items, you would get a question and it would say, okay, here's person A and it would be six randomly grabbed attributes from that list of seventy six, or person B with another random six and say which of these two people is

closer to your view of a successful life. You're like, I don't know A. And you do it again, and you do it again and again and again and over time you're trading off every attribute against every other attribute, but you don't know it, right, Okay. So that's that part of it with Conjoy. So what we did was we did we'd ask what do you think? And then the same exact thing, what do you think? Most people would say, what would they choose? And what was fascinating?

In the aggregate? This idea of being famous shook out as the number one perceived priority for people and it was not even close like it was by far the most dominant attribute we think for other people. In private,

it was dead last number seventy six. Now, illusions don't get much bigger than that, And that research has important implications because one of the of really really serious consequences of collective illusions is that this generation's illusions, unless you do something about them, tend to become next generation's private opinion. And here's here's what I mean by that with respect

to fame. You know, some of our colleagues at UCLA have been studying the effects of media on middle school kids for years, just kind of understanding what values are they internalizing as their own, And up until a few years ago, whenever they looked, the dominant things that they were internalizing tend to be character related. It's kind of what you'd hope, right, I want to be a good person, I want to be honest, I want to have friends. A few years ago it changed and it hasn't changed

back every year. Now the dominant theme is I want to be famous. I want to be a YouTube star like I remember one of the in the quality of interviews they did, one of the kids said I want to have a million followers, and they said, at what it doesn't matter, It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, right, And you know, it's it's pretty sad, right, because it's like it would be one thing if they were internalizing

the actual values of society. But we've all learned the hard way that most of what constitutes that sort of wealth, status, power. It's really not a very fulfilling certainly not a self actualized life. Right, And our children are now internalizing that empty view of success as their own, all because we've allowed this illusion to propagate throughout society. Yeah, this is

so important. I'm so glad we're having this chat. I do want to ask you, you know, you said that it turned out it was actually theme was actually like seventy one or so, like what was number one? Like? What do people actually care about? Here's what's great. So, first of all, you might not be terribly surprised given our last conversation that at the individual level, the trade

off priorities are unbelievably individual. Like it just there's no average you're saying, Yeah, there's no like when you looked at the average, Like no individual actually holds that exact profile, Right, I felt pretty good about that. It's like who. But what's interesting is you look at the things that cluster up top. They were things like relationships, character related things, and then like education, but not from I want to

go to the most elite school possible. Just I want to They want to get they want to get training to do things that matter to them. Right, they wanted purposeful lives and they want to be good people. And let me give you one specific example. So in the aggregate, the number three most important trade off priority for people, this was, this was just in the United States, was to be viewed as trustworthy, like and yet they don't

think anybody else really cares about it. It's the third most important thing to them, and yet they don't think that. It's like they think people would prioritize it very very low. Now, think about the problem, Right, I want to be trusted. I believe I'm trustworthy, but I don't think anybody else really cares and I don't really think they're trustworthy. How does a democracy function if we really don't think not only are people untrustworthy, but that they don't even care

about it. And it's just not true. So this is the kind of damage that illusions do to societies. I hear you. I mean these implications are deep. You said, we have found that collective illusions flourished in just about every important area of social life in America. I mean, that's that's incredible. That's incredible. I mean, once you start going down that rabbit hole, do you kind of like, just see it everywhere? Now, Todd, do you just like

can you not unsee what you see? I think I had to course correct a little because, Yeah, we found it so often that you just start assuming everything's an illusion. But everything is. Everything is what you're saying to you. It's a big matrix moment. No, I think that the thing I feel safe is saying is name anything that's important in society right now, and it's a coin toss whether it's an illusion, it's incredible. Well, let's talk politics is obviously very important on a lot of people's minds.

You say in California, And I was surprised why you had to write in California, because this seems to apply probably everywhere. Both Democrats and Republicans assume the other side holds more extreme views than they actually do, creating a self fulfilling misperson option of political polarization. You found that that was especially problement in California. In that case, that was the best research that I had found when I was writing. I didn't like some of the methods in

some of the other research. Whenever we'd like, especially when you're writing a book, as you know, it's like you want the things that have been replicated, You want some good methods. But that was rock solid. We've since actually

confirmed that nationally. It's interesting right now. In the book, I tried to stay away from politics, mainly because what I found was if you don't understand the concept of a collective illusion, if your first introduction to it is something very polarizing, that issue tends to just be all the thing you can think about. Right, So it's like you want your head around the actual concept. But what's interesting from the political standpoint is, not surprisingly, our national

politics are driving a lot of these illusions. And it's happening on both sides, but it's it's really leading to both seeing the other side as very extreme when it's not really true. But most importantly, and even more damaging, we're seeing within any one political party the misunderstanding of

our own party. Oh my gosh, I mean, I can just so clearly now see how this dovetails so nicely with your work on intelligence, and that there's no such thing as averages, right to even just having that recognition that within your in group, there's no such thing as the average view, even in itself, right, I mean, the thread here is so obvious once you started packing this.

But between your prior work and this work, right, Yeah, But it's interesting too because it's like, no matter what we've looked at, so we've studied everything from you know again, what you mean by a successful life? Are aspirations for the future of the country, How do we want to treat one another? What do you want out of our key institutions like education and the workplace, criminal justice, these things? And it's just like we've got so much more in common.

I know, it's so easy to say, right, and people try to say all demographics we share a lot in common. What I think collective illusions help us understand is why doesn't it feel like that? And I think this is important because you know, there's an old in social psychology, there's an old Thomas theorem, right, which is, if it's real in our imaginations, it becomes real in its consequences. So it doesn't matter that we actually share so much

common ground. If we believe we are divided, then our behavior will act accordingly, right, and the consequences become self fulfilling. So I think this is a critical time for us to understand a concept like collective illusions because not only does it mean perhaps there's actually some common ground for us to build a free and flourishing society together, but that the way we would deal with some of our

problems is different. Like, if we really are divided, so be it right, there are ways to bridge honest differences and still get somewhere. But if it is a collective illusion, then what we do next is different. And sometimes leaning into an allusion as if it's private opinion can literally make the illusion stronger. Yeah, I would rather people have a kind of best self bias in the other person, like see the best in them and be biased and be wrong then the other way or that other kind

of error, because you're you're so right. It's true that when you actually lead with the bias of we're divided, you take ambiguous stimuli and you're more likely to view negativity in that it's like why why are you angry at me? And it's like no, I actually just have a neutral face right now, you know, Like do you know you're hitting on a really important point? Right, which is despite what most people think, most situations are pretty pretty ambiguous, right, like, and so true, we are projecting

a lot of assumptions in interactions. And so if I am coming into it thinking all it's equal, someone I'm just meeting probably disagrees with me on really important things, and in fact, I might not even think their view might be. I might think it is even immoral or whatever I am I am, The way I'm engaging with them is likely to produce the very outcome that I didn't want. And so it matters that we get this right.

And you know, I think what's so unfortunate, and we can talk more about this, but like it's really dangerous when you know two thirds of Americans admit to self silencing right now, and you know, I know Cato had done that research. We've replicated that it's a thing, and it cuts across all demographics. It's just like we're just not being honest with each other about what we think, in part because we believe most people don't agree with this.

And so if we can get back to just having conversations treating one another's respect, I think we'll be shocked at the common ground that we find when we have those conversations. I completely agree. And I was wondering if you've come up with a like a chart like that

just shows what people actually want and think. I mean, I feel like disseminating that information would be really valuable, you know, some kind of like white paper of like what people actually think, or a cool infographic infographic Have you thought about doing infographic? You know? So here's what's interesting. I agree with you, and this is going to be

an important step. And we've published research and stuff like that what we find and what we have found and partly why I wrote the book is the trick with illusions is your brain is certain it knows what the group thinks. So if just being told it with data that it's not true. The number of times people say, man, I wish it were true, but I know it's not. Like.

So what we found our strategy we felt like is the more that people came to understand the phenomenon of a collective illusion, the more likely it is that they were willing to take new data and say, okay, wait, now that I know that this is possible and I know that, like I can't really trust my brain to

tell me what the group thinks. They were open to good data, where otherwise it just seemed like the data itself like and if you think about it, like, how many other organizations have shown us, like, look how much common ground we have, and yet it doesn't seem to move the need. So our bet is to socialize the concept of collective illusions, get people to understand this, and then hopefully we can now start to have the conversation with data about who we really are as a people.

I mean, like, to me, it's it's come on us to actually meet people where they are, and I think this is an important concept. So it's on me to try to communicate in a way that people understand and can relate to. Yeah, no, I I think that's a that's really sensible. Yeah, there's some other findings here that boow my mind. So why is the moment you ask someone is a woman as electable as a man? How

come the moment you ask that everything changes? Yeah? This is this was one of those really remarkable We didn't do this research so I can brag about it, right, right, Right, it's Regina Bates and this is really fantastic research looking at gender bias in politics, right, because it's unbelievable, Like women are so underrepresented in electoral politics. It's just you can't it's but like here's the thing, Like it's important

to understand what's driving that. And for sure, let's just be clear, just straight up sexism certainly is involved sometimes like that, that's certainly the case. What doctor Bateson found, when I think, was really fascinating, is that given our winner take all like sort of two party system, so much is dependent on what the gatekeepers think. Because now, if we were doing something like ranked choice voting, it

doesn't really matter. I don't have to care what I think anybody else thinks, right, But in a winner take all system, I have to do a little bit of guessing about who do I think most people are going to vote for, right, because otherwise my vote is quote unquote wasted, right if I take a flyer on that. So what was interesting is if you look at how women perform when they are nominated in general elections, women win at the same rate as white men, which is

so suggest obviously it's not a general election problem. And what she found was that it was like party leaders, especially donors right, They're like, well, wait a minute, I'm not sexist, but I think most people and the party are, so I don't think you're going to be able to win, and so they don't get the support they don't get the resources, and it becomes self fulfilling. It's so clear when you put it that way, how that becomes a

self fulfilling prophecy. But there is so much pressure within certain groups to say the dominant ideology and just like don't like if you can't, it's like a cult, right, because like the second you question, maybe you know, like what does the evidence actually show there? Like you're out,

you're not being loyal. Yeah, so that's it's Actually in the book, I was looking at what you called these conformity traps, like these these three kinds of situations where you are likely to slip into blind conformity, and you are quite likely to do that under an illusion to begin with. And you know, this this sort of identity trap where you've got these groups that matter so much to who you are, right, and especially when it's just one group, that group has cult like power over you. Right.

In fact, I actually opened a chapter talking about a cult and like people's willingness to even die rather than lose that sense of belonging to the group. And so that can be so powerful. And so once somebody gets control of that group, right, or the illusion going, you can lead entire groups astray in a hurry. Humans human, right, because like this is the worst. We're the worst. Well, I don't know if we're worse than turtles. They can be pretty cheeky. But the thing is about humans is

that this this stuff generalize. The group stuff kind of generalizes from individual relational stuff. Like it's it's a you look at codependent relationships one on one, you start to see similar dynamics. You know, like you start to it just have you thought about it the individual like the individual illusion level and how those basic first principles reasoning for first principles here you know, yeah, your upstay correct.

So so it's actually it's like fractal quality to it. Right, So you see illusion in in just between two people or small groups, right, you know, I wrote about it in the book, But it's even with people that you know really well, Like one of the it was kind of funny, but like I had one with my grandmother who was like my second mom who helped raise me, and it's like like and it was funny. The short version of it is as we talked about previously, like

my upbringing, my family was great. My you know, I was a hard kid to raise and didn't have a lot of friends, and so that it was my grandmother was was always there for me as a place I could always go. I'd sleep over there once a month and one time, and they didn't have very much money. I mean, they really didn't have a lot of money, and I wanted to just be there because I could.

I didn't have the words for it then, but like that was the place I could be myself and like my Corse Hall levels clearly I'm sure dropped like in that environment. It was like my sanctuary. And one time we would go and she would make me a bloney sandwich, would play like yachtzi and board games, and they would watch TV together till I felt like that and I

would have done that every time. It was amazing. One time she we decided, I don't even know how, they end up taking me this place called Sizzler, which was kind of like a cheap bacon salabar. Right. It it was loud, and you know, I see it was fine. I actually liked it, but like I really just wanted to be with my grandparents. Right. We did that like

every month for years. Right, So a few years ago, pre pandemic, I went back and my grandmother was passing away, and I got to be by her side and we were talking and reflecting, and so I'm telling her about how how important she was to me and how important those sleepovers were, and I just wanted to let her know because it really was going to be like the last conversation we had. And she interrupts me as I'm She says, Todd, I know what you liked best going

to Sizzler. And I was like, wait, no, I like, I didn't really, I just wanted to be home. So then she goes on to explain that that, like, no kidding, She's like, we didn't really want to go, but we know it meant a lot to you. And I was I was going, and I didn't really want to go because I thought it meant to them. And it turned out this is they didn't have enough money, so they had given up their date nights to get enough money

to take me to Sizzler. So what I learned is I had crashed my grandparents' date nights, you know, for for a few years. And look, I mean it was so great we spent time together. But for me, it's like these kind of illusions can happen in individual relationships, even with people who know you the best. And if it can happen there, it's not terribly surprising that it happens in a country of like three hundred and something million. Incredible, Todd, I just had a revelation. Do you want to hear

my revelation? I do. I actually didn't really care for Sizzler either. I think I think I felt social pressures to say, well of Sizzler, do you when you brought it up? But yeah, I think we just illustrated this point. I don't think I cared much for Sizzler, to be honest. So I'm glad that they're not a sponsor your podcast, is what you're saying, not anytime soon that you know? Like I remember the salad bar? But did I really like the salad bar? Did I really I really care

for it? There was always like something else from a different side, a different item in this in the you know, like you know what I'm saying, like like Ida, if it was pasta, there'd be like salad remains from someone else's plate in the anyway. Anyway, So how did this play out in the twenty twenty presidential election? Yeah? So look, I mean, if you go back all the way to

twenty sixteen. We know, we knew about those sort of what they called like the sort of shy Trump voters, and right or wrong, it became something that you didn't say out loud, right who you were gonna vote for. And I think that the media did a good job of kind of framing if you were going to make this choice, this is what it means about you, right

and fair enough for whatever I like. But so then the problem is is like we get to vote in private, and so you know, we had all I remember where I was when that when twenty sixteen happened, and it was like who saw that coming? Right? And in fact

was that was the beginning. We didn't even do private opinion research before then, And in part because of the way that turned out, we realized so much of our model for populace depends on accurately understanding what the American public cares about, what their values are, their priorities are. And we said, we can't take for granted anything at this point. But you know, it's interesting, I will say, on the political side, one of the things that we found in our own data right now is the after

effects of twenty twenty. Right, Well, you have one candidate who continues to say that it was stolen, right, and the way the media reports that is so public opinion. If you call Republicans, just do an attritional pull. We we just did this. We found fifty seven percent will say, oh, yeah, it was definitely stolen. Right. That number in private is closer to fourteen percent. Like it's just think about it, Like, but they believe that most Republicans think it was stolen.

And the reason they believe it is you've got a very vocal minority, right, and an end of one who is saying it over and over again. And like if Republicans don't really care much for the media anyway, and so if somebody, some polster calls them from Gallup and says, do you think the election is stolen? What are you gonna say? You know, what you think your group thinks

is the right answer. Right. So it's one thing this is important to me because it's like like I'm not trying to paint a rosy picture here, like the consequence can still be real, but you know, especially politicians. So it's interesting historically I can't remember who did the research, but like they found that Politicians were especially sensitive to collective illusions, even more so because if you think about it,

all they want to do is get reelected, right. That's like the job of a politician is to get real elect So they are exquisitely sensitive to what they think their constituents believe, right, and so it makes them susceptible to this and so and you probably know this, like I don't know about you, Like the number of at the national level, the number of Republican elected officials who will tell me privately, of course I know this wasn't rigged, right, but then they'll tell you. But but I think most

of my constituents do. Now They're not going out and lying about it. They'll just say nothing, right, thinking that their silence isn't causing any harm, but in fact it's causing great harm. This is so eye opening because I'm thinking about other domains now. I'm just curious, like how many Christians actually believe in an afterlife, Like if you actually privately ask them, like go down the standard beliefs of like Christianity or I don't mean to pick on Christianity,

by the way, any any religion, any religion. I'm so curious have you done that study. I'm curious. Oh, but that'd be a great study because here's one of the tricky parts with group belonging is that, you know, you think about groups, whether especially like political parties whatever, they aggregate a bunch of different dimensions of things, right like, Like if so it's funny, like why do I with our two party system, why do I have to be Why do I have to hate gay people to believe

in free markets? Right like? Doesn't make any sense? But they so, you know, groups that pull together, you know, a lot of different things. It's almost what we do find is it's the same kind of jagged profile thing we talked about last time, which is we know for sure there's no like average Democrat or Republican in terms of their own beliefs against the party's stated platform and so like, I would be shocked if that's not the case when it comes to religious identity, right but it's

it's certainly something we can do, be good research. We'll work on it together. Scott, Yeah, that'd be It's exciting, like to know, I want to know what the truth is, you know, about what people think think about it? Like if I'm like, well, I definitely let's just pretend. Let's say I identify as Republican, and I'm like, because I believe in free markets and free people. And I'm like, well, I actually don't mind. People should love who they want

to love. But now I feel like if I say that, I might be ostracized from the thing for which I identify, right, And so you're going to lead a lot of people to stay silent or lie about what they believe what timmer Kurran calls preference falsification just in the name of belonging.

So I'm always very leary of groups that aggregate that difference, right, Like why do I need a party that is here's our twenty things that you have to swallow a wholesale or you're not a Republican or you're not a Democrat. To me, that's always a sign that someone's trying to manipulate you. Yeah, for sure, this goes back right, Like didn't Seneca haven't talk about at the existential menace of collective illusions? Is that's why I open the book talking

about because I love Seneca. I love Seneca mainly because like he's such a like a ball of contradictions, right, you know, I remember the first time I was reading him and I didn't know about him, and I'm like, I imagine this person who rejected all material life and was like living in a cave somewhere right like like some esoteric Buddhist monk. Before. Yeah, he was the richest

person in Rome. But I liked it because I think, you know, he was living in a time when when Rome became fabulously wealthy, and you know, now people had at the same time as you had these crazy emperors, right who Now suddenly you couldn't say what you thought. And he was trying to give people a good advice about how to live a purposeful life in an era of abundance, which was a sort of new phenomenon right at scale. And so I find it just endlessly fascinating

his efforts. But he did. He was always worried about what we would now call collective illusions and the misread of the group to lead us as straight individually into lives that were purposeless and quite empty. Will we ever learn? I mean, why does every generation recreate the same human nature? I mean, I know the answer why, But right I'm saying, what can we can we change something some generation? I think that The trick is that you know, we are

who we are. Evolution works on a much longer time scale, right than any given life, and so we need to we rely pretty heavily on helpful social norms, right, these cultural norms that actually teach us the right way to engage with each other, and that can transcend any one generation.

And you know, we worked really hard in the West, you know that does I mean, this has happened everywhere, but you know where where we're from to acquire norms from from that we would have called you know, liberal democracy, right, the tolerance and respect and these things and individual rights, and you know, you see those things start to erode now and you start to see some of that base nature taking back over, the tribalism and the seeing the

other as the enemy, the outgrouping of people, and we know from history it doesn't end well there, right, Like, the erosion of these norms not only will continue to exacerbate collective illusions, I think they're the biggest threat to free society that we face in a very long time. Yeah. Yeah, you made a very convincing case for that. I mean, I once I read your book, I was like, wow, Todd is so spot on there about the urgency and

vastness of this problem. I definitely agree. I have a question because I'm thinking, you know, I'm really interested individual differences, but I'm also interested in like group differences. Is like, so there's my question. Are Buddhists less likely to have collective illusions? That's my question? Have you studied that? Not Buddhists particularly, But like I will say, what we do know is that so at an individual level, as you know, like say something like conformity or need to conform or

need to belong. Not surprisingly that exists on a continuum, right, It's not healthy for anything for us to be lumped into the same exact you know, you want difference. If you look at the need to belong, there's a difference. But this need for self expression they also want to continue them. And so people with high need for self expression are just less susceptible illusion, in part because the problem with illusion is not just that you might misread

the group. It's that your behavior is affected by the misread of the group. So people with high need for self expression are just less likely to have the read of the group affect whatever choice they make. Right, And so what's interesting is not all of us are going to have super high need for self expression. You know,

most of us are probably like me. I'm more of a people pleaser than I would even want to be right, And you know, I'm pretty sure it's sproat me from our last episode of conversation that you know about me now, Like I've worked to like try not to care as much.

But what's interesting is those social or cultural norms are actually what helped move a lot of people from like Essentially, if I want to belong, if the norms of my group are be honest about what you believe, then a whole bunch of people who would otherwise do whatever else the group wants them to are now being honest about themselves and essentially protected against the biggest downsides of these illusions.

And when people, either because of their need for self expression or their adherence to to help the social norms that promote that, when we're all being honest and respectful about what we really think, illusions have nowhere to go, right, Like they're really hard to form in the first place. Wow,

I can I bring up something off the record that's cheeky? Absolutely, I have this ideam ahead of what women want, and I act that way, I'm not as successful than when I tell women what I actually want, and then they're more likely to say, oh, actually I want that too. Actually, you know what, I'll keep us in. I'll keep us in todd about it. Let's just think about this, because

it works both ways. You see what I'm saying, Yeah, we want, like we think we have some sense for like what women want or men want from the opposite sex or same sex. And you know, you're why would you be any more right about that than you are by these other things? And the thing is the same mechanisms that are driving illusions and other issues like are driving them here too, right, And so like we can all be saying that we want like as men, Like

let's say, as heterosexual men. I'll say, oh, there's a certain ideal about women we want, so oh yeah, yeah, that's what we want, and privately we're like not really, I kind of like a really strong woman and I like, you know, there's a lot like personally right, but there's some feminine ideal and we might say it out loud, but just to your point, I mean that that kind of misunderstanding. Think about how detrimental that is not only

to individual identity, but to interpersonal relationships. Right, Like, I think this kind of stuff holds us back from having like self actualization not only for ourselves but in the relationships that we have. I completely agree we did. We all need to be more honest with each other and have more what you call positive deviance. I love that. I love that phrase, which you define as deviation from

a negative norm and a positive direction. So how can we empower people to have more positive deviance in society despite the consequences, Because sometimes there's consequences for your group, Yeah, there are. Look, I think that there's like a there's It's important that when we say we've got to be honest with each other, I think sometimes people use that as an excuse to be an asshole. I agree. Look,

we can disagree without being disagreeable. And like I will say, one one of the most interesting things we've found recently, we did this American Aspirations Index, looking at the trade off priorities people want for the future of the country. And they were everything from like being the richest country of a strong military, like anything our institutions could do, to our values, how we'd treat one another one of

the top priorities across all demographics. It was in a top ten no matter how you cut the data, or top fifteen was we need to treat one another with respect despite our differences. Like this is like an aspiration for people, right, except for they thought it was in the bottom quarner of stuff for everybody else. So what happens if I'm like, I would like to get back to treating other people with respect, but I don't think

they care about that for me. Back to that ambiguous interactions that we have all the time, I'm going to read disrespect into most everything I see, right, And so I think it's really critical, Like like I talked about this as like congruence, right, this need for our private selves and our public selves to be as closely aligned as possible. We've known for a long time that's that's a critical part of fulfillment and self actualization. I mean,

how how do you get there? You're the expert on that, Like, how do you get there if you have a divided self? Like my private self is different than my public self. So we know that at an individual level. But given the fact of collective illusions, I believe this idea of congruence may be the most important thing you can do for other people, right, because it doesn't help anyone when we misread each other so profoundly. Yeah, you have this,

I agree. And you have the sentence with a lot of like square quotes, and you say, take authentic responsibility for our congruence in the hidden sphere of our private lives. I love that. I love. Actually, they're probably not scare quotes, are probably all just quotes, but you put you put those things quotes. You were quotes because I was trying to a tribute it. I know, because it minds by other smart people that I didn't want to I know, and I appreciate that. But I love those two I love.

I love that phrase authentic responsibility. I love it. And again it's like, you know, like we're most people are dying to do this, Like there's just something hollow to living someone else's life, right, And if I could impress anything on Listener's reviewers, like a lot of reasons why we're doing this right now to ourselves is because we

believe the group is against us. But just think, how would you behave if you knew that most people in groups that matter to you we're in agreement with you, Like, think about what that changes about your behavior and your your potential for happiness and flourishing. And I'm telling you it's just where we are right now in this society. And like, I think social media has a lot of upside, but with respect to collective illusions, it is a funhouse

of mirrors. It is almost a guarantee to distort what you think the group consensus really is. So we just got to be thoughtful about the ways, not just that ways we engage online because that's just always going to be there, but learning about collective illusions and getting some skill and not letting those distortions affect how we treat one another in real life, because that's where it really

really becomes a problem. It sounds like a lot of what you're saying is it starts from within making societal changes. You know, this idea of congruence was a big notion from one of my favorite psychologists, Carl Rogers, the humanistic psychologist. I don't know if you made that link. I did, and I got a little bit of our reference to him, and there was fun with the publisher because I feel like Rogers doesn't get the credit I agree in the same way. I think it's like he's one of the

most under explored set of insights. But yeah, the congruis was central to Roger's view of things, and like when you like you think about and Rogers then swerves right into all the areas that you're the leading expert in. And so that's for me. I felt like you would like this, which is this congruence part of our ability to get to self actualization. It doesn't guarantee it, but I don't know how you live a self actualized life

if you're incongruent. I completely agree, it's it's essential. And I just love the idea of setting an example for others. You know, that's that's that's the way out of this trap. You start doing that, and then other people in your group start doing it, and then all of a sudden, your group's the whole illusion breaks down. The emperor has no clothes, or the emperor has the effort does have clothes. Eventually,

Eventually is guess the one I'm trying to say. Eventually. Yeah, what's great about illusions is that they're powerful when they're enforced, but they're fragile because they're social lives. Right, like you don't want it to be true. You wish it weren't true. And so what you're really looking for is wait a minute, Like, so for some of us, we just need one other person to speak up to give us the strength to

do the same. Other people need more. But what you see is once you start getting the crack in the illusion, it affects what we call like bandwagon change, right, like it'll just swerve quickly and suddenly it looks like, almost overnight, the group has shifted its view. So whenever you see stuff, it's funny in politics they call it momentum. There's no

such thing as momentum. That's not what that is. That is that is an illusion where people's private behaviors like, oh wait a minute, this is like I can now say what I really think, right, I feel comfortable saying what I really think. So when you see like sort of exponential change in public opinion, like that's usually that that's usually that there's an illusion underneath there because if people privately believe something, it is very hard to change that.

And so you know, doing that is like one off, right, I have to change your mind. I changed someone else's mind, and so you'll usually sly slow linear growth or change in public opinion. When you see it change really quickly, like it did with marriage equality. Marriage equality, that the public approval for that, I mean, it's unreal since what since two thousand and three to today, it's basically flipped in terms of its its acceptance, Like that doesn't happen

if privately most people were against it. It just doesn't. Such a good point so much. The reason why it's so hard is because, like the oxytocin bonding mechanism is run so deep in our DNA and our biology, and and overriding that is not easy. Because once we feel this social trust, we can why you know we can.

We'll do anything, why cheat steal for our in group? Yeah, and that's why again, you know, I wrote a whole chapter on these like norms, because norms are invisible and we don't realize it, but it affects so much of our behavior. And when when norms break down, when they no longer represent our private values, they become unbelievably destructive, right because we think that they represent consensus and they don't.

But norms at their best are supposed to hold us to our better angels right, Like, you know, I'm sure, like I want to live in a fair society, but like what, okay, great, let's have norms of fairness that in those moments when I'm tempted out of self interest to not be fair to other people, those norms act as powerful checking mechanisms on my behavior. Right, And so right now we are not being honest with each other about our values. And if that's happening, then we cannot

form norms. You can't design norms. They happen out of human action, not human design. But they only emerge when there is a real consensus about our shared values. And so we've got to get back to that. I mean, it seems almost like self evident and we will due.

But like if we're going to continue to self silence or even lie about our beliefs, like the results are going to be collective illusions at scale, and whole societies can be taken down by those, and listen, it would be something like a free society living in a democracy. Like we take that for granted. That is a blip in human history. The idea that it can't disappear overnight

is silly. It can and it will, and it would be one thing if it disappeared, because privately, we collectively gave up on that experiment, right, But it's a tragedy if it disappears, not because of private change in values, but because of collective illusions. And that's what for me felt like the urgency to write the book right like that, It just felt like things were spinning out of control. And yet we have more data on private opinion in

America than probably anybody else. I would argue, and I can tell you it's just not true, right, So I think that's both there's both a dangerous aspect of illusions but also a hopeful one, you know, because history has shown us that if you recognize the illusion and you take an effort to dismantle it, social change can happen at a scale and pace that would seem unimaginable otherwise. Well, I can't think of any other way to end than that message. So thank you so Todd, so much for

this marathon you did with me in two parts. Thank you. We obviously have so much shared values and we're not as divided as people tell us we are. But now we know why, right now we know why it feels that way, and if we can recognize that we really can no longer trust our brain to accurately read group consensus. Then we can get back to this. It never really mattered right. Be who you are, learn to be authentic, discover your real self, and work really hard to be

congruent between your private self and your public self. The rest takes care of itself. Carl Rodgers would have been very proud of this interview. I think, thanks Todd, Thank you thanks for listening to this episode of The Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at the Psychology podcast dot com. We're on our YouTube

page the Psychology Podcast. We also put up some videos of some episodes on YouTube page as well, so you'll want to check that out. Thanks for being such a great supporter of the show, and tune in next time for more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.