← Offline with Jon Favreau
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- [00:01]
VRBO Advertiser
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- [00:31]
Sonja Lyubomirski
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- [00:49]
VRBO Advertiser
Honestly, I just booked my VRBO because there was a sweet wine fridge.
- [00:53]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Hey, we all have our reasons. Don't walk into a surprise if you know you verbo terms apply. See vrbo.com trust for details. A chatbot is going to be the best listener you've ever had in your life.
- [01:03]
VRBO Advertiser
Right?
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Sonja Lyubomirski
Because I'll remember everything you ever said and what you exactly how you said it. Right. So you can't compete with that. Right. You can't compete with listening to learn or curiosity. Right. They'll ask you lots of questions in a way, and they'll keep asking in a way that a human will get tired. Right. Our brain is sort of co opted and we think, yeah, when that AI companion is sharing about their experience, we think that's real. The one part that I find it hard to imagine is that open heart, right. That the AI actually really loves me and wants me to be happy.
- [01:39]
Jon Favreau
I'm Jon Favreau and you just heard from today's guest, Sonja Lyubomirski, author of how to Feel Loved. Sonia is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, and one of the nation's foremost researchers on the science of happiness. Happiness is of course, one of those elusive endeavors in which every self help guru claims to hold the key. We've heard their recommendations. Spend more time with your loved ones. Exercise more, get outside, put down the phone. But not many people have compiled the research Sonja has on what truly makes us happy. To some extent, her findings are simple. The people who feel the most love feel the most happiness. More connection equals more happiness. But somehow, in an age when we're more connected than ever, so many of us feel more unhappy than ever before. And if you listen to the show, I'm sure that sounds familiar. I invited Sonja on because I wanted to talk about why all that connection isn't making us happier, in fact, why it might be making us less happy. We chatted about why it's so hard to feel love over the phone, the ways our digital lives have affected our ability to form strong relationships, and what it'll take for us, both as individuals and as a society, to find happiness in this current moment. It was a conversation I'm very thankful to have had. We'll get to it in a moment, but before we do, please consider becoming a Crooked media subscriber, if you haven't already, so that you don't miss out on any of the great content we're putting out. For our friends of the POD subscribers, get our new extra episode of Pod Save America called Pod Save America. Only friends, other subscriber only shows like Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer, access to all of our excellent substack newsletters like Pod Save America, open tabs ad free episodes of all your favorite crooked pods, and you get to feel good about supporting one of the few independent, proudly pro democracy media outlets left in Trump's America. So head to crooked.com friends and subscribe. All right, let's get to it. Here's Sonja Lyubomirski. Sonia, thanks for coming in.
- [03:36]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Pleasure to be here.
- [03:37]
Jon Favreau
I wanted to talk to you for offline because I think your latest book, how to Feel Loved, has a lot to do with our digital lives and it's also doing something different from, I think, what people would expect from a happiness researcher. The premise is that being loved and feeling loved are two different things and that an awful lot of people who are surrounded by people who love them still walk around feeling unseen. So we'll start there. What is the gap between those two things and how big is it?
- [04:09]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Yeah, well, my co author, Harry Reese and I actually did a survey expressly for the book and we asked people if they feel loved, and 70% said they don't feel as loved as they'd like to be in at least one relationship in their life. And 40% said they wanted to feel more loved by their romantic partners. I actually think those numbers are understatements.
- [04:28]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, it's a hard thing to admit.
- [04:30]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Yeah. So that's a lot. That's a lot of people who, who are not feeling loved. And feeling loved, I really think is the key to happiness.
- [04:38]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [04:39]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Yeah.
- [04:40]
Jon Favreau
Well, in putting it that way about feeling loved, I feel like it puts some responsibility on the reader. Is there a risk in a message that may land as like, if you feel unloved, that's on you?
- [04:56]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Interesting that you would look at that interpretation, because we look at it the opposite, which actually, it's empowering because it is really up to you. It's under your control to feel more love. Because a lot of people, when they don't feel love, they think, oh, I need to somehow make myself more lovable. I need to somehow change the other person, make them love me more. And we're saying, no, it's actually under your control. You don't have to change yourself. You don't have to change the other person. You just have to change your conversations. You know, a relationship is just a series of conversations, and that seems very controllable and empowering. So that's how I see it, is that it's under your power.
- [05:31]
Jon Favreau
One more sort of opening question before we get into it. You're known as a happiness researcher. Your whole career has been about what makes people happy. Why did you decide that feeling loved is upstream from that?
- [05:44]
Sonja Lyubomirski
It's a great question. So for 36 years, I've been doing research on happiness, and for like, 28 of them, my lab and I have been doing what we call happiness interventions. Right. So happiness interventions are experiments with human participants where they're like clinical trials. Right. We're testing whether different happiness strategies make people happy or, like, do an act of kindness. Does that make you happier? Write a gratitude letter, Just be more social. And I've discovered after all these years of doing, like, dozens and dozens of these interventions, that almost all of the interventions that work to make us happier, they work precisely because they make us feel more connected to and loved by others. So that's really the key. Right. So when I write a gratitude letter to my mom or my best friend, it makes me feel more loved by them. Right. If I do an act of kindness for you, it makes me feel closer to you. So it's really the key to happiness. So that's why I'm here. And then I decided to partner with, like, a love scientist to write a book about love and happiness.
- [06:40]
Jon Favreau
So it's, you know, as other people have found, it is about connection, but more specifically, it's about the kind of connection that makes you feel more loved.
- [06:49]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Exactly.
- [06:50]
Jon Favreau
So your. Your book opens with the claim that we live in an age of unprecedented connectivity and unprecedented loneliness at the same time. We've talked about that a lot on this show. The World Happiness Report that came out in March basically says the same thing. Youth, well being in the U.S. canada, Australia and the UK has dropped about 0.86 points on a 0 to 10 scale over the past 20 years. While it's gone up for young people almost everywhere else in the world, American and English speaking young adults now rank between 122nd and 133rd out of 136 countries in terms of how much their happiness has changed. What's your read on why the floor is falling out from young people in exactly this slice of the world and not elsewhere?
- [07:36]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's a little bit of a puzzle because people from all over the world have smartphones. But yeah, it's young people. And that's why the US keeps dropping, right? It's the, whatever it is, the 14 to 28, something like that age range that's dropping. So I mean, I have a more, I have a fairly nuanced view of this because I certainly we recognize there's ways that like social media and just having, yeah, having texting, whatever, a FaceTime can help us feel more connected to others. So I don't want to discount that. And in fact, a meta analysis just came out of like a thousand studies or something and they showed that basically face to face connection is the best over screens is second best, better than none at all.
- [08:18]
Jon Favreau
Right, okay. Yeah, that makes sense.
- [08:19]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Really great study, Baumeister et al. But what is happening with young people, I mean, partly is that they've never really learned to have conversations. I mean, conversations with a human, really, that's like what it's all about, right? That's what makes us feel human. And one of the examples I like to use is like when I was young, a friend would come over to my house and they would knock on the door and they would be like, hello, Mrs. Lyubomirski, although they probably couldn't pronounce her name is Sonia here. Right. And they would chat with my mom. And now what do they do? They just text you and you come out and you don't even, you don't even have the experience to that step. Skip that step. That's just one of a million ways that young people aren't practicing having those conversations. You know, in those schools where they've, where they've taken out phones, you see kids during lunch or recess, right? They're just like, they're like punching each other and they're joking around and. Right. They're, they're laughing hysterically, like kind of what kids should be doing. So, yeah, I mean, I don't think I'm going to tell you anything you don't know, but it is harder to feel loved over a screen. Although you can. And then of course, the AI companions are here. And this idea that if you have a young child, their first relationship is probably going to be with an AI, not with a real person. By the way, there's some benefits to that. Maybe they can rehearse and practice, have a conversation, how to communicate. But that's a whole other. Adds a whole other layer, right? There's just so much easier to communicate over screens. And then one other thing again. When I was growing up, if you spent your weekend alone, you know, without seeing people, you were kind of a deviant, right? Like you were, you were not the popular kid. Like you were maybe 5% of kids, right. Were sort of not social. They were like the unpopular kind of ostracized kids. And now the statistics, I don't remember what they are lately, but they're, they're, they're incredibly surprising. Like how many kids, like never see any other person on the weekend? That's become kind of the norm.
- [10:12]
Jon Favreau
It certainly makes sense to me because I talk about this all the time on the show and I think a lot of our listeners that in person conversation is superior to digital conversation. But I kind of want to dig in on the why. There's a passage in the book that sort of jumped out at me that I want to read back to you. How can you truly feel loved when your loved ones only know the rosy side of you? More audition tape than real life? How can you truly feel loved when you worry that unveiling your raw, full, imperfect, innermost self might cost you their love and respect? How can you truly feel the love coming from them when your attention is focused on how you are coming across to them? That reads to me like a description of what social media has done to every conversation and not just interactions on social media itself. Do you think the curated online self is bleeding into how we show up in person? So, like, is the Internet making it harder to be vulnerable enough in real life to actually be loved?
- [11:11]
Sonja Lyubomirski
So fascinating. So, okay, so thank you for actually making it clear that we're talking about social media, right? Because you can do these things over texting or FaceTime phone call. So we know we have these curated Personas and everyone thinks. And there's a great study that came out with first year college students that first year college students think that every other person in their first year is adjusting better than them because they keep seeing like videos and photos of here's me and my roommate having fun, here's me at a party. And, and so, yeah, so they have this Misleading image of how much fun everyone else is having. But this is really the key. The key to feeling loved is being known. Right? So, like, if you only see this one side of me, and usually it's sort of the polished, you know, positive side, but even if it weren't, if it's just like one side, but it's like only 10%, how could I ever feel loved by you? Because I'll always wonder, would you still love me if you knew more, you know, the real me, more of the me? Right. It's kind of like when you think about, influencers have all these followers, how can they feel loved when the followers only see this one little, you know, side of them? They really can't. We argue you need to be known to feel loved. Right. And so. And you're asking, wait, whether that bleeds into everyday conversations. I don't know the answer to that. I haven't actually thought about that. But maybe it does. If you're sort of always used to talking about the best parts of your day, and then when you actually are in person and they say, how are you? Like, are you gonna be more likely to say, oh, actually, I had this terrible.
- [12:39]
Jon Favreau
I had a terrible weekend, it's you. And then also I wonder if people think that sharing the more vulnerable parts of their life, things they assume are secret, is not going to be received well by others. Because that's not what we encounter day to day. Because we live so much of our lives online.
- [13:00]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Right, Right. We don't even see it. And there's something called the vulnerability paradox in psychology. Vulnerability paradox, which is this. This idea that you think people will like you less if you are more vulnerable, share something negative about you, and actually they like you more. And actually, one of my favorite examples is John F. Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs. Those of you who know what that was, he goes on TV and he, like, says, I made a mistake and his approval ratings shot up. Now, very extreme example, we're not all jfk, but you have to read the room. So we're not talking about just dumping your traumas on people at the wrong time in the wrong place. Right. But it turns out we think, and there's a great work by Nick Epley at University of Chicago showing that we think that if we reveal something deep or if we ask someone a deep question, it's going to be awkward, we're going to be judged, it could be used against us, or maybe people won't care. Worst case scenario, right? No one cares.
- [13:51]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. Indifference.
- [13:52]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Right? Indifference. Even worse than a negative reaction. Right? And actually that's false. Like, on average, people don't respond. They actually like you a little bit more. Again, as long as you read the room, you need some emotional intelligence.
- [14:03]
Jon Favreau
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- [17:05]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Yeah. One more statistic. Sorry, one more statistical. Because it's very vivid. Igen A book by Gene Twenge on this says that 12th graders today look like 8th graders generations ago. So in terms of driving, sex, drugs, alcohol, working outside the home, spending time with parents versus independently. So, yeah, 12th graders look like 8th graders. It's probably gotten worse. Those are kind of old data. So. Yeah, that's incredible, right? What's driving it? Like. Yeah, like, lack of experience. Fear. There's this great article in the Atlantic called the Sex Recession. Have you ever read it?
- [17:42]
Jon Favreau
I've heard about it, but I've not.
- [17:44]
Sonja Lyubomirski
You drop everything and read it. I've read it like three times because it's so fascinating. And the writer interviews all these young people. They're like teenagers to, like, 20s. And they're like, you know, it takes too much work to get past first base. And we're reading it, we're like, what? It's too much work. It's like, easier just to stay home, you know, watch porn. And so it's a very different kind of perspective, very different approach and sort of fear. Fear.
- [18:12]
Jon Favreau
What's driving the fear? That's different in this generation from other generations.
- [18:16]
Sonja Lyubomirski
I feel like we all had the fear, but then we were forced to. When you're forced to just jump in the lake and just face it and talk to people who you're attracted to and hang out with other people your age and. But if you're, if you, if you're in your room, it's like you're afraid of snakes. But you never confront a snake. Right. How do you get rid of phobias? You actually confront exposure therapy. Exposure therapy, yeah, we all need more exposure therapy.
- [18:38]
Jon Favreau
The data on young people on screens is interesting because it seems like they feel like they have to use it because everyone else is. But if given the choice to get rid of them for everybody, they'd rather do that. Or at least a majority would rather.
- [18:51]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Yeah, exactly. I remember once visiting a class, it happened to be at UNC Chapel Hill. And we were talking about this and everyone in the class said, yeah, I want to get off of it. But like ever. Exactly, like ever. Because otherwise I'd be ostracized. I mean, I would not know anything that's going on. Like my social, whole social life would end. So they're like, could we all get off of it at the same time? And there are schools, like for young, for younger kids. They're whole schools that make a pact with the parents that no one will use phone. And I don't know how well that works because the whole school has to be in on the pact.
- [19:22]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, it feels like it. This is why it comes from the administration.
- [19:26]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Right.
- [19:26]
Jon Favreau
Like that's usually the best way to do it.
- [19:28]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Exactly.
- [19:28]
Jon Favreau
You and Harry argue the answer isn't to ban tech or unplug because that's not realistic and not even desirable. But you also recommend that text based communication should be 5 to 10% of your conversation time, max. That is radically less than how most people I know actually live. What does the rest of that time look like in your prescription?
- [19:50]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Yeah, yeah.
- [19:51]
Jon Favreau
For.
- [19:53]
Sonja Lyubomirski
In terms of conversation time? Yeah. I mean, ideally face to face. And I wish we were all. We lived in situations where we would be running into people. So I don't know if these kids are living in a neighborhood where they could see other kids or people their age very easily, whether on a bike or in the neighborhood. That's one of the issues I actually was once asked to consult. I think they didn't tell me what it was. I think it was from one of the Emirates. And they were designing a happy city. And they said, can you design a happy city for us? And I'm not an urban planner. I'm like, okay. And so I basically said, like, let's create like a neighborhood where people are constantly running into each other.
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Jon Favreau
Right.
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Sonja Lyubomirski
So you could not run. We know that people who live near stairwell have more friends in a dorm.
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Jon Favreau
Interesting.
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Sonja Lyubomirski
I mean, that makes sense.
- [20:34]
Jon Favreau
Right.
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Sonja Lyubomirski
When you think about back at college. Right. So ideally they're face to face, you know, or they're reading.
- [20:41]
Jon Favreau
It is funny. It's a feeling. I lived in D.C. for a decade before this, before LA and small towns in Massachusetts before that. And I felt like when I first moved to la, I have constantly lived in neighborhoods near people I know. And even now I have some very, very good friends, like, down the street. And it is such a difference because just. And like, neighbors that I had met before. But just being able to walk and run into people, you know, is such a big difference than when you feel like you're living somewhere where you're isolated and just walking around and don't know anyone.
- [21:18]
Sonja Lyubomirski
It's such a big deal to actually make a plan. This is why actually so many of my friends are talking about, like, building communities where people actually kind of live together, like, in a compound, which I know sounds.
- [21:28]
Jon Favreau
We joke about. Well, our friends, we always joke about that. We've kind of done it on our street.
- [21:32]
Sonja Lyubomirski
But I know. I think it's like. In fact, one of my friends, who's 50, she's about to move in with some roommates, and she's like, what am I doing? I'm 50 years old. I'm like, this is great. This is exactly what you should do.
- [21:41]
Jon Favreau
She'll be very happy.
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Sonja Lyubomirski
And in some ways, my favorite time was college. Like, this idea, you have your own room, but you have shared meals that you can go out in the quad, and people run in, you run into people. You go into study in the library, you run into people there. So I kind of. And a lot of my friends are talking about recreating that kind of college dorm environment, but for adults, wouldn't that be great? They can go to talks and movies.
- [22:06]
Jon Favreau
It would be nice. Even when you were talking about the kids in the cafeteria and schools that don't that ban the phones, we had Dr. Vivek Murthy, the last Surgeon General, on, and he said, like, one of the saddest moments for him was visiting a school where kids had their phones and they were all sitting at the lunch table just on their phones, head down, weren't talking to each other the whole time. And you're like, that can't be socially
- [22:30]
Sonja Lyubomirski
healthy for kids and for their posture and all of that, right?
- [22:33]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, that too.
- [22:34]
Sonja Lyubomirski
But, yeah. Well, anyway, there is. And you know, Jonathan Haidt, who's a friend also, he. Yeah, I think he's making a huge difference. And Tristan Harris, they're really made a lot of, you know, we've made. They've helped, you know, this movement. And also, people are realizing It. And they both say, we all have to kind of realize it together. And sort of. It's kind of like when nuclear power was a threat. Everyone had to kind of decide, we all want to live and not die, and we have to. And it took that much kind of will, but it happened. Right. And so is that a bigger problem than phones? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe it was. I don't know. Phones are a bigger problem.
- [23:08]
Jon Favreau
The heart of the book are what you call five mindsets. Sharing, listening to learn, Radical curiosity, open heart, and multiplicity. I want to spend time on listening because I think it's probably the one with the most political weight. You and Harry write that the three things real listening requires are attention, comprehension, and positive intent, which is the one I keep thinking about because most of what we see online is the opposite of that, to say the least. Can you walk through what positive intent actually means and what is lost when it's missing?
- [23:39]
Sonja Lyubomirski
It's that I care about you. I want you to be happy. What you care about matters, which is interesting. When you think about listening, you think about it as something more neutral, Right? We're just kind of paying attention, just taking it in. Yeah, I'm like. Yeah, I'm like. It's like. And we say listening to learn. Listen. Like, there's gonna be a quiz tomorrow. Great. So that's a good way to think about it. But it's more than that. It's also just feeling like I care. It's caring about the person and what they have to say and that it matters. And we all know in this polarized society we live in, Right. If we listen more to each other, really listen, not just dismiss without listening, and then curiosity, which is really the enthusiasm component of listening, and also really be curious about the other person. So when someone has a really different perspective from you, like, why. You know, to really be curious, why do they believe that? I mean, because they. They're not necessarily bad people, right?
- [24:30]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
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Sonja Lyubomirski
Or maybe even harder. You're in the middle of a fight with your spouse. Try to be curious in the middle of a fight. Right. Wow, they are really angry. What makes them so angry right now? Right. And. And listen again. Listening, which means not like, because we have all this inner chatter in our heads, right? All this inner chatter all the time. There's this great survey that just found that 25% of the time when we're trying to listen to where our mind is wandering, it's probably more than that. Right. So we're.
- [24:57]
Jon Favreau
And you can tell it's hard. It's hard to turn the chatter off.
- [24:59]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's normal. It's human, right? To turn it off and to truly listen. One of the best advice, pieces of advice I got was to listen like you're watching a film, right? So unless you're a filmmaker or a critic, right? When you're watching a film, you're just taking it in, right? You're just like taking it in. You're not formulating a response. What are you gonna say to the film, right? What you think about the film? You're just taking it. So when you're listening, try to like, listen like you're watching a movie.
- [25:26]
Jon Favreau
And now people aren't even. People are like on their phones while they're watching screens. Which I do think that is another contributor to the not listening to learn. Like, you're gonna take a quiz. Because we're so used to our attention, and I know that's one of the things listening requires as well, but because our tension is in so high demand from all the different screens and everything else, I think we're used to our brains going from thing to thing to thing to thing.
- [25:53]
Sonja Lyubomirski
But we can turn it off, right? And when you think about it, like, I remember when my kids were in this high school, this private sky school, we had a speaker who wrote a book called the Organized Mind. It was really about, like, our short attention spans. And he talked about, oh, how horrible it is. All these kids have short attention spans. Literally. Like TikTok videos they're watching, they're three minutes long, terrible. And I actually raised my head and I said, wait, but these kids, they're taking like three hour AP tests and they're acing them, you know, and so they can do it. They can do it. So every habit can be untrained.
- [26:28]
Jon Favreau
It's like a muscle.
- [26:29]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Yeah. Like, I remember when I had little kids, then they'd be like, don't give them a pacifier. I'm like, you know what? Yes, they'll get used to the pacifier. But you know what? They can also get unused to the pacifier. It's like the pacifier. We gotta get unused to it.
- [26:40]
Jon Favreau
Your research found that self described good listeners report feeling more loved in every category, measured by partners, friends, family, community, colleagues. The benefit comes back to the listener. It's a little counterintuitive. Like, why does being a good listener make you feel more loved yourself?
- [26:57]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Yeah. Yeah. So interesting because we actually have a grant now where we're studying the benefits of listening for the listener. Most studies are actually about the Benefits to the speaker. Right? Because it feels good. And some of it, the correlational studies, there could be a confound. It could just be the type of people who are good listeners also happen to be just whatever, have better relationships and you know, for other reasons. But in the experiments, it's actually very interesting. It's maybe that kind of attunement or when you're putting like the positive intent, right. When you're putting positive energy out there for the other person that feels good. It's kind of almost like creating a self fulfilling prophecy. You know, if you don't like someone, there's a study of this and I actually do it sometimes. There might be a colleague that I don't really like and I'll say to them myself, I want them to be happy. I want them to be happy. And then you start feeling it. I want them to be happy.
- [27:48]
Jon Favreau
And then you start acting and then
- [27:49]
Sonja Lyubomirski
you kind of start. So yeah, so you're listening. I care about what you have to say and you learn things about the first thing. Oh, empathy too, right? You are able to put yourself in their shoes and you are able to understand them better.
- [28:03]
Jon Favreau
The attunement is interesting and it's funny because I obviously spend most of my life asking people questions and I was doing some interview, I was on someone's podcast and they were like, does anyone ever ask you how you're doing? I was like, not a lot. But then I'm like, thank you. That's really. You know what, like when someone does ask you, you're like, okay, yeah, that's a nice.
- [28:26]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Same thing with parents. Right. It turns out. And by the way, if I were to tell your listeners anything today, call up your parent and ask them like, not just how's your day? But like really, what are they thinking about lately? Like what is important to them? Tell them about their childhood memories. Right. We often take it for granted. Right. But asking questions also makes you happier too. So, John, you're probably happier just from asking a question.
- [28:51]
Jon Favreau
By the way. I do feel happy. I mean, yes, I love, I love doing this.
- [28:56]
Sonja Lyubomirski
It's a two way process. I often say if you're only asking questions, you're like, it's like an interview. Or worse than interrogation. If you're only sharing. We talk about the importance of vulnerable sharing, then it could be like a monologue. Right. So you really need both ideally, this dynamic process.
- [29:11]
Jon Favreau
It's so funny you mention parents because. And I think, you know, my wife and I both talk about this when we're Talking to our parents, it's like, how are you doing? And usually the answer is, well, your dad and I did this, and then we did this, and then this happened, and, oh, and it's a lot. It's like a report. And you do realize that part of that is because you don't say, like, how are you feeling? Or like, what's been. You know, what's been interesting to you lately? Or.
- [29:38]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Right. Ask them deeper questions. Again, research shows we are afraid to ask deep questions because we think it will be seen as prying or it'll be uncomfortable. Actually, people love to be seen. But let's get back to the. They give you the report or just. We know people who are like, you ask them something, they're like, oh, I went to run an errand and I couldn't find a parking space. And then I didn't have change, and it's this very boring. So I'm not saying your parents are
- [30:02]
Jon Favreau
doing this, but, yeah, we all do. I've done it to people as well.
- [30:04]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Or like, I missed the flight. And then you give them the. Play by play. It's not very interesting to the other person. But then you wonder, okay, you wonder why. Why are people doing this? Because they want to be heard. They want you to know about the details of their life. Right. The details of their inner life. Like, we really want to be seen, and so that's why they keep telling us these details. Right. So maybe we're not doing enough. So the person in your life who's always telling you those stories, those boring stories, maybe we're not doing enough to kind of really help them be seen. And maybe I don't know how to do that exactly. Maybe ask them some questions about that parking space.
- [30:41]
Jon Favreau
But you're right that it is a. It's a signal.
- [30:43]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Yeah.
- [30:43]
Jon Favreau
It's. It's like, because, you know, I've done it before, and you're like, telling details of, like, what you did, and you're like, no, because I want. You're. You don't even know what you're looking for. But I think it's. You're looking for that deeper connection.
- [30:54]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Exactly. Yeah. So you have to figure out what's underneath that. There's always something underneath it. I actually did a workshop where I asked people to kind of ask questions. And there's these two women who know each other for, like, 20 years, and they ask each other questions. And one she said once, said she was telling me the same story I'd heard many times. And so she almost, like, Tuned out. She's like, okay, I've heard this story before. And then she stopped herself and said, you know, there must be a reason why she keeps wanting to tell me the story again. Maybe there's a part of the story that I'm not quite hearing or I'm not quite understanding. Right. So there's always something underneath that, or the person who talks nonstop. It's so annoying. And you have to ask yourself, why are they doing that? Maybe they feel like people aren't. They're tuning them out, so then they're talking even more. It's like a vicious cycle. But I'm not so good at all of this either. But I just. I can observe it.
- [31:42]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, no, I know people like that. So I thought this was fascinating. You guys cite research showing that high quality listening actually reduces political polarization during conflict. That when one person in a disagreement listens well, the speaker depolarizes. We touched on that a little bit.
- [32:01]
Sonja Lyubomirski
And reduces prejudice among both of them.
- [32:03]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, I was going to say, how does that work mechanically? And given that nobody on the political Internet is doing this.
- [32:10]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Well, in studies, you force people to do it, right? So they literally get people from opposite hats, so to speak, religious, political orientations, and then they get them to talk about. Well, there's a couple of different ways of doing it. A recent study just had people share vulnerably. Actually, this is not about listening. It's about sharing. And I'm. So you're from different. Totally different spectrums. And I talk about how I'm struggling with my son, and the other guy is saying, oh, I'm struggling with his son. So then we start to understand each other better. Like, wow, we're just both human. We have the same struggles. And so that reduced prejudice. Isn't that interesting? That didn't even involve talk about politics. It's just like realizing we're all human and we have the same problems. But then the. Listening to me, it's kind of obvious, right? Like, if I'm really listening to you and you say, you know, like, I support this, you know, this person or this. This policy, and you're like, I don't understand because I. And then you really, really listen. Why? And sometimes you. You. Yeah, you. You get to understand better again, you still disagree? Yeah, it's.
- [33:10]
Jon Favreau
And it seems intuitive. Like. But like, I've had, you know, I've had these arguments on Twitter and. And I always think to myself, like, if I was. Could just sit down with this person for like, 10 minutes, I don't Know that we'd necessarily agree, but we wouldn't get to the point where we think each other are like monsters.
- [33:28]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Right, Exactly. But it's so hard because our defenses go up, right?
- [33:32]
Jon Favreau
Yes.
- [33:33]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Our defenses go up, our walls go up, and we want to be right. That's actually a really big part of it is like, not needing to be right.
- [33:41]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [33:41]
Sonja Lyubomirski
You realize, like, once you stop needing to be right, because why do we need to be. Why do we need to convince that person? I mean, obviously some of it is just about votes. Right. But, like, I know I'm. Well, I don't. I shouldn't say that. I know I'm right. Like, I know I. This is how I feel about these things. I don't need to convince this person of my point of view because it is what it is. But. But if you keep. Yeah. Why do you have that need? Well, to convince.
- [34:04]
Jon Favreau
You just mentioned you said votes. But, like, I would argue that people are not as focused on getting votes, because to get votes, you need someone to agree with you, if not on everything, at least on a general worldview. And if you're trying to persuade, then what's more important, trying to persuade someone so that they eventually come along with you or being right? And I do think that the way that we talk about politics now, it incentivizes, because we do it online, being right over actually changing a mind.
- [34:37]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Yeah.
- [34:39]
Jon Favreau
So you came at this as a scientist, not a political commentator. But I'm curious whether you see a path from, like, the five mindsets, like, up to the level of society. Like, can 330 million people, like, can the country practice radical curiosity toward itself? Or are these, like, very one on one, we're sitting across from each other?
- [35:00]
Sonja Lyubomirski
No, no. I mean, the book is really written more about one on one, about all kinds of relationships, by the way, not just romantic ones. You know, any relationship, including with strangers. But. Absolutely. We didn't write the book about it, but this could be applied. We could do a second book. How does this be applied to, like, I absolutely believe the world would be a better place if we all use these five mindsets. Right. So we shared more of ourselves. So we didn't just sort of hide ourselves. Because then if you. Then we see each other more as human and we see our humanity, and we also see how similar we are to others. And if we listen better with curiosity rather than just dismissing and avoiding, and the open heart is just compassion and believing in other people and thinking and wanting them to be happy, I mean, that's an Obvious one almost don't talk about that mindset that much because it's sort of obvious. Yeah. To have compassion for others and empathy. And the last one, multiplicity, I actually think might be the most relevant one to protocol.
- [35:54]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, Explain multiplicity for people.
- [35:55]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Yeah, sure. So the word multiplicity, I'm told, comes from trauma research. This idea that if you have a trauma, it doesn't have to define you.
- [36:02]
Jon Favreau
You.
- [36:03]
Sonja Lyubomirski
It's still, of course, part of you, but it doesn't define you. So the idea is that we're all a quilt of, like, both positive and negative qualities and traits and behaviors. So I'm kind sometimes, but sometimes I'm selfish. Right. We all are. And sometimes I'm loyal. And sometimes I'm a little narcissistic, like we all are. And we know this. And when I tell people, they nod and they're like, of course. Yes. We should all take a multiplicity lens, by the way, not just towards others, but towards ourselves. Right. Seeing everyone in their messy complex. And the problem is, it's so hard, right? So I feel like I've gotten better as I got older. When I see someone do a bad thing, of course, my first reaction is, oh, they're terrible. And by the way, I have this pet theory, which is that it's evolutionarily adaptive for us to be judgmental, right? Think about in our ancestral past. We meet someone, you have to judge whether they're friend or foe, right? We have to make that snap judgment, and so we have to override it, like, deliberately and intentionally so someone does something about it. I'm like, oh, I hate that person. And then you override it, and you're like, okay. And so I have a few friends who've taught me how to do this, and they're like. Like this example of this one guy, he wrote something kind of terrible to a woman. And we're all looking at this text. We're like, I can't believe this is a terrible person. And she says to us, I see the little boy inside of that guy. I see the little boy who was rejected by women, girls. And this is where it's coming from. Now, it doesn't condone or excuse, justify what he wrote, but it gives us compassion. And so I think I'm a lot better at that. But it's easier said than done. We all know people who did something really bad. And would you agree we shouldn't judge people by their worst behavior? And yet we do. And think about people who've been to prison. We really do. We Never give them. They don't get a pass. They serve their time, they pay their dues, they're repentant, and yet they're. For the rest of their life, they're sort of paying the price. Right. We can have a different society where really, really, really give, you know, release them of that, you know.
- [38:03]
Jon Favreau
Did you find that being a parent helped with that? Because that is one thing. And you talked about as you. As you got, as you've gotten older, it's easier to think about that. I've noticed that because now I have two boys. My eldest is almost six and is very inquisitive and curious and asks tons of questions. And as he sort of knows what I do and has been introduced a little bit to politics, he'll say, oh, so Donald Trump's bad. He's like a bad guy. And then of course, you watch cartoons, and cartoons are still like bad guys, good guys, villains, heroes. And I've tried to stop myself from being like. I've tried to say a few times, there aren't bad people and good people. There are people who do bad things and people who do good things. And we all have the capacity to do good and bad things. And who knows if he's getting it? But it is. I feel like it's something that you really have to practice. And when it's with your kids, you suddenly realize, like, I don't want them growing up thinking that the whole world is black and white, good and evil. Like, I want them to know that there's. People have the capacity to do horrible things and wonderful things. But it feels like you're really closing something off by saying that, like, you're good or you're bad.
- [39:10]
Sonja Lyubomirski
So interesting, of course, like the black and white thinking when you think about me, when you think about. Yeah. Starting with cartoons, fairy tales. Right. Bad, good. But even, even for adults, like, you know, it's easier, I guess probably a movie does better when there's like a clear hero or villain. Right. When, when, when there's complex characters. Although I think lots of TV shows now, there's lots of complex characters. It's changed, you know? Yeah, it's changed. Like succession, you know. One of my favorite shows. Yeah, it's, it's. But it's really hard because again, it's easy to kind of nod and say, of course. But then when I give people an actual example, you know, so actually, I'll give you an example. I have a friend who went to prison. He did something bad. He really. He's. He's so ashamed. He's really paid his dues and he's, he lost 80% of his friends and they don't ever want to have anything to do with him again. And I'm like, well, what do you do with that? You know? And a lot of people, if I tell them what he did, you know, they're like, I don't know how you could be friends with him. And yet I feel like he's changed and it was, it was a mistake, you know. And I also see all the other parts of him that are wonderful. But anyway, when you actually hit someone with a real life example, they're like, oh, multiplicity lens. Well, not on that guy.
- [40:19]
Jon Favreau
I mean, my wife for the last several years has done a lot of work with Homeboy Industries here in Los Angeles, which is a gang rehabilitation program. And it's run by Father Greg Boyle, who's a Jesuit priest. And he always says, we're not the worst thing we've ever done. Like, that is his sort of like guiding philosophy. And Emily is always, when she's there and she meets all these people who've rehabilitated their lives, it is like the most powerful example of, okay, if I can see that this person has changed, has realized what they did in the past was wrong, wants to be better, then why shouldn't I apply that to other people that maybe I've never met?
- [41:02]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Exactly. And like, we don't see. Yeah, we don't want to give people second chances, you know, it's. But yeah, but anyway, I do think it's a sign of sort of maturity, I guess. Maturity. That's why I say as you get older you just see everything. Right. The more you, you see everything, you see all kinds of people. You see all kinds of like people change and growth. And so we. Forgiveness, you know, Forgiveness, it's another topic. Yeah. Grace. Yeah.
- [41:37]
Jon Favreau
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- [44:01]
Jon Favreau
You mentioned AI earlier. I want to spend a little time on this because I thought that chapter 12 in your book was just fascinating about this. You cite these USC studies where people in online conversations consistently felt more heard and supported by AI generated messages than by responses from other humans, and where independent third party raters agreed the AI responses were more compassionate. Walk us through that research.
- [44:30]
Sonja Lyubomirski
So AI, right? So a chatbot is going to be the best listener you've ever had in your life, right? Because they'll remember everything you ever said and exactly how you said it. So you can't Compete with that. Right. You can't compete with listening to learn or curiosity. Right. They'll ask you lots of questions in a way and they'll keep asking in a way that a human will get tired. Right. I actually say that they can share, even though whatever they're sharing is not real. But for the same reason I can watch a film knowing it's not real and I can have real emotions. Right. I laugh and cry and I'm scared even though I know there's a camera there. Our brain is sort of co opted and we think, yeah, when that AI companion is sharing about their experience, we think that's real. The one part that I find it hard to imagine is that open heart. Right. That the AI actually really loves me and wants me to be happy. But even that could be co opted as well. So again, and it's not surprising to me, again, I'm trying to have a more nuanced view about AI companions. I think they can be very helpful. There was a New Yorker article actually that said something like, those of you who throw shade at people who have AI companions have never been truly lonely and I haven't fortunately been truly lonely or truly depressed. So they can really be helpful for people at certain points in time and life for survival and then, But I'm just hoping that they, that then they can transition, they can serve as transition objects.
- [45:57]
Jon Favreau
Well, because there's also a twist in that same research which is you found that people, they found that people who spent more time talking to voice based AI chatbots initially felt less lonely and then over time felt more lonely, more emotionally dependent on the chatbot and had fewer interactions with real people. What's your read on what's happening there?
- [46:15]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Yeah, yeah, I think, I think short term it could be really beneficial or rewarding. And then over time if you're becoming over reliant, just like anything. Right, look, moderation, the Aristotle and mean, I'm a big believer that moderation, you should practice moderation in everything, including moderation. Right. And yeah, like if you use it in moderation, but then you go and you know, see your friends on a Friday night. There's some great examples. Like there's a study out of China that had women, so these are women who were using AI chatbots to practice conflict conversations with their husbands. And these are marriages where they had less power. And so the study found that the conversations went better because it's like they had a therapist sort of help them that they could afford. Right. And that's really cool. So you could Use. Or that young people could have an AI companion practice relationships before they actually get into the relationship. But the risk is, right, they never make the leap.
- [47:11]
Jon Favreau
And that's. I know. I think about that a lot because I can. As much as I talk about the sort of. The dangers of AI, I can see those benefits, but partly because when you first start talking to it, it can so easily lure you in and make you think, like, oh, I'm feeling listened to. I have someone to think with me or listen to me. Then because there's no friction, it feels like, oh, maybe that's gonna be easier than going to have the difficult conversation.
- [47:39]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Which, again, think back to those young people who say it's too hard to get to after first base, past first base, because there's a lot of friction and conversations and awkwardness and anxiety you have to get through. It's easier just to either not do it or now to do it with a AI bot.
- [47:55]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. Well, and there's a related point, which is that you make, which is chatbots are designed to never criticize, never seem disappointed, never disappoint you. And this is a defect, because feeling loved and real love does include friction. Can you make the case why it involves friction to feel love?
- [48:15]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Yeah. I guess I would say it has to do with authenticity. Right. One of my, I think, highest values is authenticity. It's actually a very complicated concept. Yeah. This idea that you feel it's real. Right. It's kind of like if I'm always giving you compliments, you're not going to believe them unless once in a while I give you some criticism, some tough notes. Exactly. And I try to do that with my friends, but we know that. Right. If it's only giving. If it's only giving us positive feedback, I cease to believe it so much. We're not so stupid. Right. So a sort of authenticity, that friction makes us feel real. And by the way, we, of course, can design a bot that will have friction. And it's just that the incentives aren't there for companies. Right. That they want you to. Just like with social media. Right. The incentive is that you keep looking. But we can. I'm sure there are companies. I'm sure there are people working on it now. Right. Like an AI companion that's more realistic and it's not sycophantic.
- [49:07]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. The challenge, though, and you mentioned this, too, is that chatbots cannot really love you because they don't choose you. I thought that was an interesting thought.
- [49:17]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Yeah, I know, too. I was actually just talking About a friend, about sort of what's the most important thing in relationships? Right. Partly it's openness and vulnerability and commitment to repair. But maybe the most important is, yeah, it's like you're chosen. You're chosen and you're honored and you're desired. Right. And. But certainly they can tell you they've chosen you and they desire you and they honor you. So.
- [49:39]
Jon Favreau
But then you realize, like, well, if you don't log on to talk to them for a month, they're never going to be like, hey, where have you been? Yeah, that is. I find that interesting. I don't know if you saw. This past week, Pope Leo released his very first encyclical. It was about AI. He frames the choice we face as one between what he calls the culture of power and. And the civilization of love, and argues that the human person can't be reduced to data, that true progress requires a heart open to others and intelligence willing to listen, and a will that seeks what unites rather than what separates. That is like, basically the five mindsets.
- [50:13]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Beautiful.
- [50:14]
Jon Favreau
Like, what did you make of the Pope landing in the same place as a happiness researcher?
- [50:17]
Sonja Lyubomirski
No, I love it. No, I love it. Well, and he probably had lots of guidance and conversations with others to land on that. Yeah, I love it. I love it. And it's just the problem is you can design an AI to do those things. So I don't know. I'm an optimist, but there are days that I. That I'm afraid for the world. Yeah.
- [50:39]
Jon Favreau
One non AI thing I want to ask you about because it sort of surprised me. In the book, you and Harry argue that mdma, actual mdma, the drug, induces every one of your five mindsets in a single afternoon. You quote a Benedictine monk saying, people spend 20 years meditating to feel what MDMA gives you in an afternoon. As a happiness researcher, how seriously should we take that? Is the future of feeling loved pharmacological or can it be enhanced? Does it make it easier?
- [51:08]
Sonja Lyubomirski
It certainly can be enhanced. So I actually have a line of research on MDMA for a really good reason, because you can bottle in an afternoon in a lab experiment what it might take a long time to create, which is this feeling of being deeply understood, deeply loved, grateful, trusting. Everyone's beautiful. Right. So it's not a shortcut, but you can use it just for research. Right. So you can, like, when you find out, like, what brain regions are activated. Right. When you're feeling understood or when you're listening or when you're Curious. In fact, people, there's, like, these funny studies, these funny anecdotes, people in MDMA experiments where they're just sitting alone in a room, and yet they want to connect. Right. So like a nurse. Someone told me the nurse will come by and measure their cardiac signs because there's some cardiac things that could happen with mdma, and they'll be like, oh, are you a nurse? Oh, how long have you been a nurse? Tell me, do you like your job? Right. Because you're so very curious on mdma. Anyway, it's not a shortcut, but it certainly can. There's certain people who maybe who have never felt those things or very easily. If they use MDMA with a guide, it could be incredibly helpful. It might be the first time in their lives that they feel, like, truly connected, truly trusting, truly grateful. And as you may know, this. This substance is being used to treat PTSD and lots of other things.
- [52:27]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, that makes sense.
- [52:28]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Yeah, because. Yeah, because, like, you're. The walls come down. You're able to go into that room, you know, where that horrible event took place, and process it. Yeah. You're not defensive? You know, I. I had. I had a neighbor who told me, this is great. He negotiated his divorce settlement under MDMA with a. With a guide.
- [52:47]
Jon Favreau
No way.
- [52:48]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Isn't that brilliant?
- [52:49]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, I mean, yes, that's fascinating because.
- [52:52]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Because they weren't defensive. Because otherwise it's. Even if it's a good, you know, kind of a functional divorce, healthy divorce. So I. Yeah, I think it's an incredible, kind of almost a magical substance. There's other psychedelics. MDMA is not technically a psychedelic. Other psychedelics that have been shown to have really kind of incredible, you know, outcomes under sort of set and setting. So, yeah, I'm a big proponent of, like, using psychoactive substances to answer questions about, you know, human psychology. Love connection.
- [53:22]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. Last question. And you said you're an optimist, but some days. Now that you've written a book about the road to happiness and how it runs through feeling loved. After all the research that you guys have done and that you've encountered, are you more or less hopeful than when you started?
- [53:40]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Yeah, more hopeful. And this is going to sound so hokey, like, coming from a scientist. I've been a rigorous scientist for decades, and now I'm thinking that, like, this sounds like I've just taken a psychedelic journey, that, like, everything is love. It's like the substrate of the world is love, and that we just need to increase the love in the world, and we'll be all better off. Like, sort of love is the antidote to almost any problem. And when I say love, you know, I'm also, I'm including, like, the mindsets. Right. It's sort of, it's compassion. It's real genuine listening, curiosity, sharing of yourself, you know, looking at other people with warmth and connection, acceptance. So, yeah, I know it sounds a little bit woohoo.
- [54:17]
Jon Favreau
No, I mean, yeah, I'm sure it'll strike some people as woohoo and hokey or whatever it may be. I will say that the more, the longer I've been in politics and the darker politics has become, the more that sounds to me like, yeah, that's about right. It kind of comes down to, like, treating people really well like you want to be treated and trying to connect with people more than. Clearly, we are connected right now.
- [54:39]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Do you know that Rick Doblin, who started maps, which is the organization that does clinical trials to test MDMA for treatment with ptsd, I think he said he sent like, and I remember he told. He was at my house at one time, and I think he said he sent 1000 capsules of MDMA when Gorbachev and Reagan were having their summit in, like, what was it, 1980? Because. And this is kind of brilliant, right, this idea if, like, world leaders of different countries or imagine, like Israelis, Palestinians, you know, took MDMA together. Now, he's pretty sure Gorbachev and Reagan did not take it, but he's also pretty sure that some of the aides did take it.
- [55:20]
Jon Favreau
Wow. So maybe, maybe we should send Trump some mdma. You're not the first person to maybe the ayatollah. And maybe we could just give them all. Yeah.
- [55:29]
Sonja Lyubomirski
And then they would. And again, it doesn't. It's not going to solve all the world's problems, but if you could sit across the table from someone with your defenses down, where you're not just dismissing anything they say with just this deep curiosity. It is a shortcut to deep curiosity and listening and an open heart.
- [55:47]
Jon Favreau
You know what? That's a perfect place to leave it.
- [55:49]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Great.
- [55:50]
Jon Favreau
Sonia Lubomirsky, thank you so much for joining offline. The book is how to Feel Loved. Go check it out, everyone. It'll really make you think.
- [55:59]
Sonja Lyubomirski
Really fun talking to you. I love your questions, so thank you. Yeah. Because they're a little bit different from other people's questions.
- [56:04]
Jon Favreau
Well, thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah. Offline is a crooked media production. It's written and hosted by me, Jon Favreau. It's produced by Emma Ilech Frank Austin Fisher is our senior producer and Anisha Banerjee is our associate producer. Audio support from Charlotte Landis. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics, Matt De Groat is our VP of Production. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Delon Villanueva, Eric Schutt and our digital team who film and share our episodes as videos every week. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America.
- [57:02]
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