How you see yourself

Summary

TED Radio Hour – "How You See Yourself"
NPR, Host: Manoush Zomorodi
Air Date: February 13, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this thought-provoking episode, Manoush Zomorodi explores how we perceive ourselves and how those perceptions are shaped—and sometimes distorted—by photography, moral ideals, beauty standards, digital technology, and even the architecture of our brains. Through in-depth conversations with a portrait photographer, a psychologist, a journalist, and a science writer, the episode investigates the persistent tension between our internal narratives and external realities, ultimately questioning what it means to see—and accept—ourselves as we truly are.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Awkwardness of Self-Image: Portrait Photography with David Suh

• Photo Day Trauma & the Power of the Lens
  David Suh, TikTok-famous portrait photographer, discusses why so many people feel deeply uncomfortable in front of a camera, often tracing it back to rigid, awkward school portraits.

  • "To many people, getting their photos taken is a very traumatizing experience." (David Suh, 01:47)
  • Many carry childhood discomfort into adulthood, affecting self-image and how they “show up” in life.

• Transforming the Pose
  Suh rejects cookie-cutter posing in favor of authenticity and presence.

  • "Posing is a practice of being present in your body and communicating who you are through body language." (David Suh, 06:50)
  • He coaches clients to embody their own definitions of confidence, often starting with mindful breathing and mirroring movements, making the session playful and collaborative.

• Empathy & Breaking Gender Norms
  Suh relates how wearing dresses for photoshoots helped him realize the physical and emotional vulnerabilities of his clients.

  • “There are feelings to it that we just would never know unless we try to be physically in their shoes.” (David Suh, 10:37)

• Challenging “Fake It Till You Make It”
  Suh advocates against pretending in photos, emphasizing the destructiveness of society’s narrow ideals.

  • “A session with me is almost like breaking down your Lego castle… and snapping your finger and saying, you know what, it’s actually a sandcastle. Now let’s rebuild it again.” (David Suh, 12:37)

Important Segment:

• The anatomy of a portrait session and the link between body comfort and authenticity (07:01–09:19)
• Suh’s journey toward empathy through gendered posing (10:11–10:57)

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2. Good, Goodish, or Just Human? Exploring Moral Identities with Dr. Dolly Chugh

• Why We Need to See Ourselves as Good
  NYU professor Dolly Chugh explains humans are wired to protect a self-image rooted in morality, even in trivial situations (e.g. brushing against someone on the street).

  • “We care about whether we’re seen as a good person and whether we feel like good people.” (Dolly Chugh, 15:57)

• The Myth of Moral Perfection
  Chugh’s “bounded ethicality” theory reveals that our sense of being “good” is constructed, sliding, and often unattainable.

  • “Our definition of good person is so narrow, it’s scientifically impossible to meet.” (TED stage, 18:24)
  • People oscillate between ethical and less ethical behavior throughout the day, often subconsciously compensating for perceived lapses.

• Fixed vs. Growth Mindset for Morality
  Instead of striving for rigid “goodness,” Chugh proposes a “goodish” mentality—being open to learning and correcting mistakes.

  • “Being a goodish person is someone who has a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset.” (Dolly Chugh, 23:31)
  • Ethical learning is about vulnerability and progress, not perfection.

• Virtue Signaling & Societal Policing
  The discussion addresses the phenomenon of “virtue signaling” and the pressures to display visible morality, often more about maintaining self-image than genuine growth.

Notable Quote:

• “Our brain is a gold medal gymnast when it comes to the gymnastics necessary to make our thoughts, our perceptions, our beliefs, what we want them to be.” (Dolly Chugh, 22:31)

Important Segment:

• The pitfalls and promise of embracing mistakes and growth (20:21–24:25)

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3. Global Beauty Standards: Lessons from Korea with Elise Hu

• K-Beauty’s Influence and Homogeneity
  Journalist Elise Hu documents Korea’s beauty culture, its influence on global skincare routines, and its deeply rooted societal expectations.

  • “South Korea is exporting more cosmetics than they export smartphones.” (Elise Hu, 30:02)

• Surgery, Conformity, and Familial Pressure
  In Korea, cosmetic procedures are seen as both a necessity and a way of showing respect to one’s family.

  • “A Korean woman who gets cosmetic surgery... this is a way of showing respect to others in her community or family.” (Elise Hu, 35:22)
  • Beauty in Korea is not just personal—headshots are standard on resumes, and employers make snap decisions based on appearance.

• The Rise of Digital & AI-Created Beauty
  Social media and hyperrealistic filters are shaping—and narrowing—global ideas of attractiveness, moving beauty standards away from humanity and towards artificial perfection.

  • “If we are chasing digital beauty, well, then the limit does not exist. AI’s idea of attractiveness is only increasingly inhuman and cyborgian.” (Elise Hu, 39:30)
  • Even young children (tweens) are engaging with advanced beauty routines.

• Resisting the Pressure to Conform
  Hu advocates for celebrating difference and rejecting the pressure for uniformity imposed by digital culture.

  • “The more we sit with not dyeing the hair, not getting the Botox, the more comfortable it becomes. So we need to lean into our humanity, the things about us that aren’t smooth... Because if we go in this direction of just, like, smoothness and sameness, it’s really quite a boring future.” (Elise Hu, 41:34)

Important Segment:

• The impact of AI and filters on real-world beauty standards (39:01–40:55)

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4. The Brain’s Stories: Science, Self, and Fragility with Anil Ananthaswamy

• The Narrated Self and Its Vulnerabilities
  Science writer Anil Ananthaswamy reveals the fragility of the “self,” drawing on experiences from Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, and rare neurological conditions.

  • “We tell others, and indeed ourselves, stories about who we are. We take our stories to be sacrosanct. We are our stories.” (Anil Ananthaswamy, 43:25)
  • Alzheimer's shows that memory underpins our self-narrative; as memory collapses, so does a coherent sense of self.

• Body Ownership and Agency
  Disorders like xenomelia (feeling a limb doesn’t belong to you) and schizophrenia (loss of agency) reveal that the most basic aspects of self are constructed—and can fall apart.

  • “Something as basic as the sense of ownership of our own body parts is a construction.” (Anil Ananthaswamy, 46:13)

• Implications: Compassion, Marvel, & Letting Go
  Understanding the brain’s role in self-perception fosters empathy for those with “altered selves” and a humility about our own.

  • “These stories that we take ourselves to be—what philosophers call the narrative self—these are spun by the brain and body. They are constructions.” (Anil Ananthaswamy, 45:11)
  • We are both robust and deeply fragile.

Notable Moment:

• The poetic invitation to marvel at our constructed selves and be more open to difference (50:00–51:39)

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Notable Quotes

• David Suh (on authentic posing, 06:50):
  "Posing is a practice of being present in your body and communicating who you are through body language."

• Dolly Chugh (on protecting self-identity, 22:31):
  "Our brain is a gold medal gymnast when it comes to the gymnastics necessary to make our thoughts, our perceptions, our beliefs, what we want them to be."

• Elise Hu (on digital beauty standards, 39:30):
  "If we are chasing digital beauty, well, then the limit does not exist. AI’s idea of attractiveness is only increasingly inhuman and cyborgian."

• Anil Ananthaswamy (on the self’s fragility, 45:11):
  "These stories that we take ourselves to be—what philosophers call the narrative self—these are spun by the brain and body. They are constructions."

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Memorable Moments & Timestamps

• How to create authentic portraits (David Suh, 07:01–09:19)
• The “goodish” person vs. good person mindset (Dolly Chugh, 23:31)
• AI and the future of beauty (Elise Hu, 39:01–40:55)
• Neuroscience and the narrative of self (Anil Ananthaswamy, 43:25–46:13)

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Flow, Tone, and Takeaway

The episode weaves warmth, self-reflection, playful curiosity, and sobering science into a nuanced interrogation of self-perception. From David Suh’s gentle humor and dance-like photo sessions, through Dolly Chugh’s accessible wisdom, to Elise Hu’s cultural critique and Ananthaswamy’s poetic science, each segment connects to the next in a manner that is conversational, empathetic, and deeply human.

For Listeners Who Missed the Episode:
Expect a journey from the apparently minor discomforts of school picture day to the profound mysteries of the mind, with stops at the superficial (skincare), the deeply moral (how we think of ourselves), and the existential. The episode insists there is no fixed self, but rather a continuous negotiation—a mosaic of internal stories, social pressures, embodied experiences, and neural construction. True peace with ourselves, the show suggests, may come only from embracing that complexity, leaning into difference, and being open to growth.

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Transcript

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[Minouche Zamorodi]

This is the TED Radio Hour. Each week, groundbreaking TED Talks.

[Dolly Chugh]

Our job now is to dream big.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Delivered at TED Conferences to bring about.

[Dolly Chugh]

The future we want to see around the world.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

To understand who from those talks, we bring you speakers and ideas that will surprise you.

[Elise Hu]

You just don't know what you're going.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

To find challenge you.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

We truly have to ask ourselves, like, why is it noteworthy?

[Minouche Zamorodi]

And even change you. I literally feel like I'm a different person.

[Dolly Chugh]

Yes.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Do you feel that way? Ideas worth spreading. From TED and npr, I'm Anoosh Zamarodi. Do you remember picture day at school? You step into an empty classroom. Maybe a pastel backdrop set up with blazing bright lights.

[David Tsah]

Okay, next up.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

And the photographer. Stand here, please, who is in the middle of taking dozens, if not hundreds of kids photos.

[David Tsah]

All right, shoulders back.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Starts posing you like a dog.

[David Tsah]

Tilt your chin.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Turn your body.

[David Tsah]

Straighten your back.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Adjust your shoulder. Now sit up straight. Okay, now look at the camera. Before you know it, a moment which feels so incredibly forced, awkward and unnatural smile is captured for all time. And then you go back to class, never wanting to have your photo taken ever again.

[David Tsah]

To many people, getting their photos taken is a very traumatizing experience.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

This is David Tsah.

[David Tsah]

When you bring up a camera to someone, like, a lot of people just shrivel. Their body just reacts immediately without them even commanding it.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

David is the guy on the other side of the camera. He is a portrait photographer.

[David Tsah]

And I think a lot of people as young children who didn't want to be photographed and were put through that. I don't think many people realize that we hold that sort of grudge, whatever it is. I think a lot of people hold that in their bodies. And it shows up in front of the camera. And when we internalize that, it shapes how we act. It shapes how we show up in the world.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

David sees this all the time with clients. Confident, interesting people with incredible careers and hobbies don't know how to feel natural or in front of the camera. And so David has made it his mission to reject a culture of awkward, scripted poses.

[David Tsah]

Are you tired being stuck doing the same poses over and over and instead.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Found a way to help people feel more confident, more themselves?

[David Tsah]

My name is David Tsaw. I'm a professional photographer, and I'll show you how to Go from that to this.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

He has millions of followers on TikTok and Instagram, where he dishes out practical and thoughtful advice. From how to pose in direct sunlight at the beach without getting washed out to how to take a photo of two friends who are of very different heights.

[David Tsah]

When you see a stranger photographing something.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

How to take pictures in public without being that obnoxious person taking up the whole sidewalk.

[David Tsah]

Speaking of attention, don't bring unnecessary. So how do we take this want of looking good in photos and then meet ourselves where we're at with how we perceive ourselves? And now it's about moving our bodies and saying, how do we find comfort in our body when we're so used to tearing it down and saying, ugh, it looks terrible. It's not perfect.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

How do we do that? How do we reconcile the image that we have of ourselves with the one that we show to the world? That's what today's episode is about. Self perception. From why we want to think of ourselves as good people to definitions of beauty that have been exported from the plastic surgery capital of the world. How can we make peace with who we are on the outside and inside? For David Tsah, a good portrait marries those two things inside and out. But this kind of thinking was not obvious to David when he first went to college.

[David Tsah]

At that time, I was doing a lot of college grad photos.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

David had wanted to study dance, but that didn't work out. So instead he majored in design at UC Davis. Taking photos was a great way to make some extra money.

[David Tsah]

I was like, okay, like, I have a nice camera and I can take decent photos, and everyone's. Everyone's offering to do it for X amount of price. So let me just get myself some money to go to dinner a few times a week. In the beginning, it was very cookie cutter.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

David says he Googled grad school photo poses for inspiration.

[David Tsah]

Right? Like, there's a sense of style to it. Maybe it's a girl graduating. She's got her hands on her hips and then she's got her arm up in the air. Maybe it's like throwing the, like, cap or something like that. If anything, it was a big roadblock for me. Want to think about poses? The only reason I was posing people was because I knew I had to. They weren't professional models. And I'm glad I came across my mentor, Sue Brice, at that time, too, because sue was the one who really taught me that we can't be put into boxes. And I think a lot of us feel comfortable when we are in a box and we look like other people and it's safe, but, you know, we as photographers can be in control. And we can. We can control the outcome of how photos come out for everyone and how people experience being in front of the camera.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

And so when he realized he was responsible not just for taking composed pictures, but for making his clients feel comfortable, David threw out his list of poses.

[David Tsah]

And then people started realizing, oh, yeah, like, David doesn't just do cookie cutter poses. He's really thinking about each individual.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

He started having fun with his clients, moving with them, dancing with them, and kind of inventing new poses on the spot. Whatever felt natural. And now he has his own ethos.

[David Tsah]

Posing is. It's a practice of being present in your body and communicating who you are through body language.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Today, when David starts working with a client, he asks them a few questions. How do you want to see yourself? How do you want to feel in these photos? How do you define feeling like yourself? Then they look into clothing options.

[David Tsah]

Let's look at fabrics. Let's look at structures and silhouettes. And let's also deconstruct what some of these clothing, the association that's tied to these clothing. I could really just redefine this, and I could wear and don this suit. I could wear this beautiful dress. And through this exercise, at the end, they're realizing I am so much more than how I perceive myself.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

You look great.

[Dolly Chugh]

Okay.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

They've got an outfit that they feel good in. There's hair, makeup. And then, like, what actually happens in the session?

[David Tsah]

Let me have you.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

How do you get them to loosen up, to feel comfortable?

[David Tsah]

A process I take everyone through. It's first, just like a yoga class, getting really present in the moment. So a deep breath through our nose. Getting really present in the moment. And there's many different ways to do that. Right? There's breathing, just breathing and slowing down. Feeling the toes that you have, that's contacting your shoe into the ground. If they're sitting, then I really help them feel like, what are you sitting on? And that just brings them back to the present moment and in their body. And I'm guiding her, her movements at that point. Right. We've done our hair and makeup. She wants to explore in the way she wants to explore. And now I'm just trying to channel as much of the definition that she's given me. Have you follow me.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

David gets his clients to mirror him, his movements, his facial expressions. He wants them to feel relaxed and at play.

[David Tsah]

And I'm just Moving my arm over here, and I say, wave with me. That's awesome. And the other side, Wave with me. Let's wave one more time over here.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

You're dancing with them.

[David Tsah]

It's a dance. And not only am I physically mirroring them, I'm also emotionally mirroring them because I'm doing every step of the way.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer 2]

Who is that?

[David Tsah]

Sometimes you might need some help there.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

You just look like you're having such a good time. Can you tell the story about where you decided to get into a dress because your client was wearing a dress and sort of an epiphany that you had?

[David Tsah]

Yeah, I love making things easier for people and helping them sort of unlock something new. And it's really important to be as, especially as a guy, for me to feel that if I'm going to be creating a safe space for a lot of my female clients, I want to. I want to make sure I'm not operating a place again from judgment. And it's being curious, being playful, and saying, yeah, I'm going to put on this dress and have fun.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

You want to. You want to be as in the skin of the person you're talking to as possible. It seems like exactly.

[David Tsah]

My social media following, too. The bigger, bigger demographic is. Is women there as well. So I get a lot of questions of, like, David, how do you pose for your pregnancy photos? How do you pose in a mini skirt? And I remember putting on my first mini skirt, and I was like, oh, my gosh, I feel so exposed.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Yeah.

[David Tsah]

And I realized, yeah, I definitely cannot suggest that pose I was about to do in my just baggy jeans.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Right, right, right.

[David Tsah]

So there's, there's like, a practical, like, technical sense to it of, like, yeah, I need to really understand, just like you said, like, if you're in a tight dress, you just can' physically move your body in a certain way. And there are feelings to it that we just would never know unless we try to be physically in their shoes.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

But, David, do you think sometimes people have unrealistic expectations? They're gonna think, you know, if I just can prove to myself that I can look amazing in a photo or I can show the world how hot I can be, that's gonna fix something that's gonna. Gonna solve something for me?

[Dolly Chugh]

Well, of course.

[David Tsah]

So that's why. That's why the, the reflection in the beginning is so important to say, this isn't for anybody else but you. And, you know, I can't control all of that. We do have our egos. Right. And we also Do I, I want to make sure I tell my clients. Listen, there's many clients would say this is very therapeutic, but by no means am I a therapist. I'm not here to help you through just like different mental health issues. Right. If that's the thing. So yeah, it's acknowledging that as well.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Are you a proponent or believer of the saying fake it till you make it?

[David Tsah]

No, I've come to really distance myself from that saying, especially in the world of posing. I think it's a way to reflect how I think society defines posing. Like fake it, right? Like sucking your stomach because you don't, you don't want to see that. Because I grew up thinking that the one definition of hot was like Chris Evans with his six pack abs coming out the ocean. Once we hit adulthood and the older we get, I feel like we start to create even more of a stubborn belief of who we think we are versus like, oh yeah, let's try this, let's play with this. And a session with me is almost like breaking down your Lego castle that you super glued together and snapping your finger and saying, you know what, it's actually a sandcastle. Now let's rebuild it again. Awesome.

[Dolly Chugh]

Awesome.

[David Tsah]

You want to see a picture?

[Minouche Zamorodi]

That's David Suh, the king of poses. Oh my God, I can't even believe that. You can see his full [e-mail] and find his Instagram, Instagram, avidsuhphoto on the show today, self perception. I'm Minouche Zumarodi and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from npr. We'll be right back.

[Dolly Chugh]

Look at me like I'm still in shock.

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[Minouche Zamorodi]

It'S the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Minouche Zamarodi. On the show today, our self image and why so many of us so desperately want to think of ourselves as good people. Let's say you're walking down the street.

[Dolly Chugh]

And you accidentally bump against someone on the sidewalk. You didn't mean to. You didn't realize they were going to tilt that way. And they call you a name and makes you feel horrible.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

This is NYU Business school professor and psychologist Dolly Chunk.

[Dolly Chugh]

And I'm like, wait, am I a jerk? I was looking at my phone. I really should have been looking up. I guess I'm kind of a jerk.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

That exact situation has happened to me and it was upsetting. And Dolly says there's a good reason.

[Dolly Chugh]

Why many of us have what psychologists call a central moral identity. We care about whether we're seen as a good person and whether we feel like good people. And the idea in that moment is that you weren't intending to do harm to someone, but you inadvertently did. Now your self view is being threatened because there's something you've done that doesn't match how you see yourself showing up in the world.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

How do different people define good? What are some of the different definitions that you've heard?

[Dolly Chugh]

Sure. Well, some people define being good as holding a door open. Other people might define being a good person as being someone who treats everyone the same. No differences based off of gender, perhaps. Other people might define good person as someone who does no harm to others, just manages themselves and doesn't cause any problems. Someone else might define being a good person as someone who goes above and beyond, who is making things better, not just doing no harm.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

So when we wake up every morning, we each have this sort of self image of who we are in the world. And generally we're trying to stick to a moral code that we've set for ourselves.

[Dolly Chugh]

Well, the Way I would think about it is people do vary in how central their moral identity is to them. And so do people wake up, as you said, thinking how am I going to be a good person? I think some people do, but I think most of us think about how are we going to get the kids off to school and how am I going to get to work on time and is there traffic and what's the weather? That said, our moral identity is often guiding how we react to what we call self threat to anything that makes us feel like we are not a good person. We may not all have the same definition, but within whatever our definition is, that moral identity is important to many of us.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Dolly Chug continues from the TED stage.

[Dolly Chugh]

Now, if somebody challenges it, like they question us for a joke we tell, or maybe they say our workforce is homogenous or a slippery business expense, we go into red zone defensiveness. I mean, sometimes we call out all the ways in which we help people from marginalized groups where we donate to charity, the hours we volunteer to nonprofits. We work to protect that good person identity. It's important to many of us. But what if I told you that our attachment to being good people is getting in the way of us being better people? What if I told you that our definition of good person is so narrow it's scientifically impossible to meet?

[Minouche Zamorodi]

So that is a big statement that it is impossible to meet our own definition of what a good person is. And you have done studies on this. Walk us through your research. What have you found when it comes to trying to be the good person that we think we are?

[Dolly Chugh]

Yeah, so we looked at things like why do we sometimes not even notice a decision we are about to make has ethical implications? Or why are we so able to overlook an ethical failure in ourselves that we would jump all over if it was in our roommate? Or if I do something sketchy earlier in the day, do I kind of compensate later in the day and do something particularly pro social? But other times I do something sketchy earlier in the day and I get sketchier as the day goes on. So in other words, like why do these spirals sometimes go downward and sometimes go upward? So there is lots of literature by a number of extraordinary scholars that have shown all of those effects. And we were able to map out a theory that elegantly made sense of all of it.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

So the theory that you're talking about is what you call bounded ethicality. Explain.

[Dolly Chugh]

So bounded ethicality refers to the idea that sometimes we behave ethically and sometimes we don't Sometimes that's intentional and sometimes it's not. And this model of bounded ethicality challenges ways of thinking where you're either a good person or you're not. Either you're a racist or you're not. Either you're unethical or you're not. That binary idea, it's quite seductive, but it's misleading and it's scientifically and psychologically inaccurate.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Okay, so we may think we're a good person, but you're saying there is no such thing. It is a sliding scale. And throughout the day we are making decisions, taking actions that affect that self view, that push it up and down that scale.

[Dolly Chugh]

Yeah. Sometimes that self view is validated by others. You hold the door open. Oh, you're so kind. Someone might say as you go into the office. So now I'm like, ah, okay. I don't feel threatened. Right. I feel bolstered.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

King of the world.

[Dolly Chugh]

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm not looking like I need to protect that self view. So now I'm in the office and you know, I don't know that they really need this extra keyboard here and I could really use one at home. It's just sitting here, nobody's taking it. And the keyboard ends up in my bag heading home.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

And okay, let's go back to that scenario that we talked about earlier that I bumped into someone on the sidewalk. I didn't mean to, but the person calls me a name and I'm thinking, oof, maybe I am rude, maybe I'm a bad person.

[Dolly Chugh]

Yes, you're not feeling like a good person. And in this case you're also being told by others that you're not a good person. And so now I'm going to spiral more towards something that will bring me back up to that positive self view, you know? Oh, when I get in, I. Oh, the security guard looked like they'd had a tough night. I'm going to go grab him a cup of coffee when I get my.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Own to sort of make up for it.

[Dolly Chugh]

Yeah. And our brain is a gold medal gymnast when it comes to the gymnastics necessary to make our thoughts, our perceptions, our beliefs, what we want them to be. We don't realize how much our self view as a good person is affecting our behavior. That in fact we're working so hard to protect that good person identity that we're not actually giving ourselves space to learn from our mistakes and actually be better people. So what I've been thinking about is what if we were to just forget about being good people? Just let it go and instead set a higher standard of being a goodish person. A goodish person absolutely still makes mistakes as a goodish person. In fact, I become better at noticing my own mistakes. I don't wait for people to point them out. I practice finding them. And as a result, sure, sometimes it can be embarrassing, it can be uncomfortable. We put ourselves in a vulnerable place. But through all that vulnerability, just like in everything else we've tried to ever get better at, we see progress, we see growth, we allow ourselves to get better. Being a goodish person is someone who has a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset. In other words, they view issues of morality as skills, as knowledge as things that are work in progress. And that I can get better at. Just like I can get better at pickleball. I can get better at being an ethical person with practice. On the other hand, good is fixed in time. It's static. It forces me in a corner because there's nowhere to go.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

I actually, I've been watching, there's all these Saturday Night Live documentaries and Bowen Yang, the first Asian actor on the show, said like there was a moment where somebody wrote something that made him feel super uncomfortable and he just went and talked to them and they said, noted, it will not happen again. Thank you for telling me.

[Dolly Chugh]

I love that. I mean, one of my closest friends from grad school, he was introducing someone, another researcher at a seminar. And in his attempt to be funny and personal, he had put time into putting a lovely introduction together. But he also said something that inadvertently highlighted a stereotype around her gender and racial identity. And he didn't realize he had done that. But when I heard it, I immediately was, oh my gosh, that is not how I would want her to be introduced in that setting. So I did what any self respecting, virtue signaling person would do is I went back to my lab and I just ranted and finally my office mate at the time said, you know, why don't you tell him? And I was like, I literally laughed in her face. I was what? Like, no, I'm not gonna go tell him what I just said. I don't even know him. She says, no, no, I do know him and I think he'd wanna know. I was like, okay, I will go walk by his office in case he happens to be there. And sure enough, I walked by his office. I kind of poke my head in and I was like, well, it was just something about that seminar earlier today, I don't know, it just made me uncomfortable. This is the moment where I Expected him to be like, well, thanks for coming by, I gotta get back to work. And instead he said, hey, hey, just wait a minute. Let me go grab another chair so you can sit down. And he ran down the hall, got a chair, and brought it into his tiny little cubicle office thing. And he said, please sit down. I really wanna understand this. Can you tell me more about what you heard me say? He's now one of my closest friends. So that's a great example of what we've called being an ethical learner. They're good ish. They're trying to get better. If someone was confronted in that moment, a fixed mindset or a good person response often starts with, that's not what I meant, or I'm sorry you heard it that way. Or what I really meant was every statement I just made was some form of trying to protect oneself. In a growth mindset, the response would be something like, wow, I didn't know that. Please tell me more.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

There are some who might say, well, this has been taken too far.

[Dolly Chugh]

Yeah.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

That there's a generation of people who act as the morality police. That you can't have a meeting without there being a ton of people wanting to show off how good they are and how thoughtful they are about their fellow colleagues. When really, based on what you just taught us, a lot of it is about their own self image.

[Dolly Chugh]

Yeah. Well, I mean, there's some truth to that, right? I mean, what they're picking up on is sometimes this virtue signaling is less about being better and it's more about feeling better, and it's less about looking at ourselves and it's more about critiquing others. And I would also say that what that individual is shortchanging themselves on in that moment is one of the greatest joys of being a human being, which is learning. Learning is thrilling. It's uncomfortable, it's exciting, it's painful, it's pride inducing. It is one of the things that is most gratifying the next time you encounter that situation. When you feel a little more in the know, that feels really good.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

That was NYU Business school professor and psychologist Dolly Chug. Her most recent book is called A More Just Future. You can see her full [e-mail]. On the show today. How we see ourselves and why we so often want to change the way we look. Women have been pressured to keep up with evolving beauty standards for millennia, but we're going to focus on the past decade and where the latest ideas of what women should look like are coming from. South Korea Have y' all heard about that Korean skincare routine that everyone's been.

[Dolly Chugh]

Doing much better than everything in the US I've been using Korean skincare for years.

[Elise Hu]

So the notion of having a skincare routine that is multi step, that is really rooted in Korean culture, skincare culture.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

This is journalist Elise Hu.

[Elise Hu]

The idea of having glass skin or dewy skin really cleanses my skin and.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Makes it feel so good.

[Elise Hu]

Having such a beautiful canvas that you don't need to wear much makeup and you can kind of do the no makeup makeup look.

[Dolly Chugh]

My pores are like basically invisible. No acne.

[David Tsah]

It's amazing.

[Elise Hu]

That ideal is also from Korean culture. So there's a lot that we're sort of used to and normalized to as just skincare these days that is tied to stuff that Korea has been doing for decades.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Through TikTok and other social media, Korean beauty trends have gone global. They've also created a massive industry.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah, South Korea is exporting more cosmetics than they export smartphones, sending out sheet masks, foot peels. They're also huge on all the wands and the injectables that are getting used in med spas across the world.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people also travel to South Korea for cosmetic procedures. I'm flying 15 and a half hours to Seoul, South Korea for my surgery in Gangnam.

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It costs me less to fly, fly to Seoul, stay in a hotel, and get all of my beauty treatments done than it does for just the treatments.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

In the US and now South Korea has the world's highest concentration of cosmetic surgeons.

[Elise Hu]

So there's all sorts of cosmetic surgeries, like getting your jaw broken to be reshaped. You know, like a reduction of the cheekbones and the jawline to make a.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Philtrum reduction, or also known as a lip lift. I had double eyelid surgery in Korea.

[Elise Hu]

About three months ago, or nose jobs or breast augmentation.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

So I had under eye fat repositioning, which is when they take the under eye fat pad and it is repositioned so you don't look so tired. Elise first experienced the world of k Beauty in 2015 when she moved to Seoul to report for NPR after many years of living there. She ended up writing a book called Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K Beauty Capital, in which she makes one central point, that the future has.

[Elise Hu]

Kind of already arrived in Seoul. And what Korea presents is kind of a canary in the coal mine for where we're going to be in terms of appearance and how much appearances matter. Seoul is all about optimizing your face and your body.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Here's Elise Hu on the TED stage.

[Elise Hu]

If you want your skull reshaped, any part of your body lifted or enhanced, have at it. It's the cosmetic surgery capital of the world. No other place comes close. Having a slimmer jawline is so desirable that a sole plastic surgery clinic once displayed the human bones of jaws it had shaved down in a glass vase in its lobby. This has since been removed. But this kind of body augmentation work isn't just accepted, it is expected because insole looks matter so much for your professional and personal advancement. Headshots are required on resumes. Hiring bosses made character judgments based on your face. You were often bullied if you were bald or big. Trying to look better is framed as a route to economic security and a matter of personal responsibility. But Korea just shows us a more concentrated and extreme example of the pretty privilege that exists everywhere. Look at fatphobia in the United States helping drive off the charts off label use of Ozempic not for diabetes but for weight loss. It makes sense when we are so rewarded for thinness and stigmatized for fatness. And all I'm saying is we should reckon with this because the more narrow our idea of beauty is, the wider.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

The pool of ugly becomes in a minute. More with Elise Hu on how ideas of beauty are becoming sub human thanks to AI and how all this has affected the way she parents her three daughters on the show today. Our self image. I'm Minouche Zamorodi and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from npr. We'll be right back.

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[Minouche Zamorodi]

It'S the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Minouche Zamorodi today on the show Our Self Image. And we were just talking to Elise Hu, the author of Flawless, which tracks the history of South Korea's domination of the global beauty industry. So, Elise, you focus on South Korea, but I mean, many cultures are obsessed with looks. I am half Iranian, and I'm just thinking of all the Persian women I've known who have gotten nose jobs. What is so different about South Korea? Is there a new level of pressure or societal expectation there?

[Elise Hu]

We have to remember that South Korea is an extremely homogeneous society. 97% of the people in Korea are Korean. They're ethnically Korean, which is so different than the US We. And what I came to understand after my time living there was that a Korean woman who gets cosmetic surgery in order to fit in, she's not looking good or acceptable just for herself. She. This is a way of showing respect to others in her community or in her family. Because so many young girls who are getting plastic surgery, that double eyelid surgery that is so common, they're getting it at the behest of their mothers or their grandmothers, family members are insisting that they do this in order to fit in. And as the rest of the world becomes as visual and as appearance focused as Korea was 10 years ago, that having good looks is framed as a matter of personal responsibility. Kind of like, oh, if you can fix this about yourself, then why wouldn't you do it?

[Minouche Zamorodi]

You were there exactly 10 years ago, and now here we are a decade later. And are you seeing echoes of that in your own life here in the United States? You have three daughters, you live in Los Angeles.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

What are you seeing that strikes you as echoing your time in Korea?

[Elise Hu]

So I'm really glad that I spent so much time thinking about this because it is helpful in parenting. Now I have a tween, I have a 12 year old, I have a 9 year old. And 9 year olds are getting really into skincare these days. You have the Sephora tweens, and then my youngest who was born there is now seven. And so I see it every day. You know, I see that I have. My oldest has said to me sometimes, like, ugh, you know, my face looks bad. I don't want to go to school today. You know, and we all had that too, or versions of that, I think, in middle school and high school. And so what Korea showed me was just how much damage that appearance bias can do.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Hmm. You're saying it's a cultural, societal expectation. And so I wonder, did you ever ask a Korean Woman like, what do you think? Do you want to do this or is that kind of moot?

[Elise Hu]

A lot of Korean women that I interviewed, and I interviewed hundreds from the ages of 7 to I think 73, and a lot of them said they wanted to look different, Right. They actually had a desire to not wear skirts to school every day or not start wearing makeup as young as they started to wear makeup. But it was so frowned upon by their individual families, by their parents, you know, who we're all taught to respect and have reverence for, that they really felt as though there wasn't a choice. Right. Like so many of our decisions, whether it's to get Botox or whether to dye our hair, it's like situated as a choice. But is it a matter of personal choice when everybody else in the group is choosing to get fillers in their face? And my point is that all of us become collateral damage when we internalize ideas that like thinness is health, fat people can't be happy, or that you're less lovable if you don't participate in this particular beauty culture.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Yeah, And I guess one aspect we haven't talked about is just how vast this beauty culture has become because of social media and the digital world that is very much shaping how people think that they should look in real life.

[Elise Hu]

Well, one thing that we didn't talk about too is kind of AI, right? And how much our filters these days are AI generated. And what I think that we need to really watch out for and remember is that the Internet tends towards sameness and a certain kind of smoothness or flatness. And I worry that our differences get flattened out and then it's only more and more marginalizing for people who can't fit in. Digital culture is now reshaping our actual faces and bodies. We learn it so young. An estimated 80% of 13 year old girls in America have already used filters or some kind of editing to alter their appearance online. And these days the filters are hyper realistic because they tend to be AI generated. They come with a suite of characteristics teaching us how to look. Things like arched eyebrows or higher cheekbones or plump lips. What then happens is we see the gap between the way we look in the mirror and the way we look in these filters. And the digital world begins to dictate real world beauty standards. Because if we are chasing digital beauty, well, then the limit does not exist. AI's idea of attractiveness is only increasingly inhuman and cyborgian. I worry that our bodies become projects to be worked on forever. And if we don't slow down. This body augmentation arms race that I saw in Seoul, then the enhancements that were available there only get farther and farther out of reach. And not just for women. I don't want my daughters coming up in a world in which their looks are the most important things about them. It is incredibly marginalizing to everybody who can't fit in and exhausting for everyone who can because you are constantly having to make or pay for interventions in order to keep up.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

So where do you stand now? You wrote the book. You were hopeful that we would question these things. People question them, and yet the train rolls on.

[Elise Hu]

So a way to care for one another is to remember that we are all so different. Our bodies show up in such different ways, and we are not less lovable because we are different from one another. In fact, it, like, makes us really collectively strong. And what beauty can do to us is make us think, oh, there's only one way to look, and it's this particular way. And we really have to fight back against that. And so I do a lot of my interviews without makeup on. I want to make sure that that's out there because I don't want to be, like, glam squatted all the time, right? I want people to know that, like, there's all kinds of ways to look and to appear and like, that I still have worth and value. And like, what I say has worth and value that's not linked to my appearance. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. Like, the more we sit with not dyeing the hair, not getting the Botox, the more comfortable it becomes. So we need to lean into our humanity, the things about us that aren't smooth, you know, and aren't necessarily aesthetically pleasing. Because if we go in this direction of just, like, smoothness and sameness, it's really quite a boring future.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

That was journalist Elise Hu. She's the host of the TED Talks daily podcast. Her book is called Flawless Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K Beauty Capital. By the way, since we first spoke in 2025, South Korea has become the world's second largest exporter of cosmetic products. You can see her full [e-mail] we want to wrap up the show with a neuroscientific perspective on our self image. We might say to someone, you really know who you are, or, I always know where I stand with you. It's a compliment. But there are certain mental health conditions that can truly change someone's sense of self and be very disorienting for them. And their loved ones. As science writer Anil Ananthaswamy explained on the TED stage in 2022, about a.

[Anil Ananthaswamy]

Decade ago, I met someone who had experienced a few episodes of schizophrenia. They had felt that their sense of self, of what it feels like to be them, changing somewhat the boundaries of their body, began to feel a bit nebulous. Even their psychological self felt a bit porous at times. They were experiencing what could be called an altered sense of self. Over the years, I met many such brave and insightful people who shared what it's like to live with their altered selves. And by altered I mean different, not deficient, while acknowledging that coping with altered selves can be a struggle at times. So speaking with them and with theologians, philosophers, neuroscientists, I came to understand that this self that each one of us takes oneself to be is not as real as it seems. Take, for instance, the question who am I? The most likely answer you'll get, or give to such a question, will be in the form of a story. We tell others, and indeed ourselves, stories about who we are. We take our stories to be sacrosanct. We are our stories. But a condition that most of us sadly will be familiar with, Alzheimer's disease, tells us something quite different. In order for our stories to form, to grow, something that just happens to us has to first enter short term memory and then get incorporated into what's called long term episodic memory. But what if the experience doesn't even enter short term memory in the beginning? Alzheimer's impairs the formation of short term memory. It impairs the growth of the narrative. It's as if our stories begin stalling upon the onset of the disease. Eventually, Alzheimer's eats away at older long term memories. So if you were to meet someone with mid stage Alzheimer's, they will likely be able to tell you stories about who they are. But if you know their real stories, you'll be able to tell that they sometimes scramble up their narrative, that they sometimes mix up the sequence of episodes from their lives. It's as if they are recalling their own stories in ways that are not quite accurate. It's important at this stage to realize that there is still a person experiencing that scrambled narrative. Sadly, Alzheimer's goes on to destroy one's narrative and so much more. And yet Alzheimer's tells us that these stories that we take ourselves to be what philosophers call the narrative self, these are spun by the brain and body. They are constructions. And when the construction goes wrong, we perceive our own stories in ways that are not quite real from the narrative self. Let's talk about our body. Let's take a very basic aspect of our bodily self, this feeling we all have, that we are owners of our body and body parts. If I were to ask you, does your hand belong to you? You're going to say, of course it does. What a foolish question. But not everyone would agree. Early on in my research, a neuropsychologist alerted me to a condition called xenomelia, or foreign limb syndrome. You may have heard of something called phantom limb syndrome, in which people who have had an amputation feel the presence of that limb. Sometimes xenomelia is somewhat of an opposite condition where people feel like some part of their body, usually the extremities of their hands or legs don't belong to them. So this neuropsychologist talked of phantom limb syndrome as animation without incarnation. So the limb is gone. It's not incarnate anymore, but it's animated in your mind. And he talked of xenomelia as incarnation without animation. So the limb is present, healthy, even incarnate, and yet in your own mind it feels like it doesn't belong to you. People with xenomelia will sometimes take extreme measures to get rid of, to amputate their foreign seeming body parts. From the perspective of the self, though, xenomelia is telling us something very profound. It's telling us that something as basic as the sense of ownership of our own body parts is a construction. Let's take another aspect of our bodily self. It's called the sense of agency. So when I do something like pick up a cup, I have this implicit feeling that I am the agent of that action, that I have willed that action into existence. That feeling is the sense of agency. But someone with schizophrenia may not have that feeling always. Someone with schizophrenia might do something and not feel like they are the agent of that action. Let me take one more example. To drive home this point, let's talk of what it feels to be a body here and now. Not the feeling of being a story, but the feeling of being a body in the present moment. Psychologists estimate that about 5% of the general population will at some point in their lives have an out of body experience. Let's assume all of us right now are having an in body experience. But if you think like I do, that out of body experiences are the outcome of brain processes that are misfiring, then it stands to reason that the experience of being in body, of being embodied, is itself a construction. And that too, can come apart. So what are these experiences of altered selves telling us? They are telling us that just about everything we take to be real about ourselves, real in the sense that we think we are always experiencing undeniable truths about our bodies, well, that's just not the case. So when theologians and philosophers tell us that the self is an illusion, this is partly what they mean. So knowing all this, recognizing the constructed nature of it all, maybe we can hold on less tightly to our stories. Maybe we can learn to let go. But that's easier said than done, because the thing that is doing, the letting go, is also the thing that has to be let go off. Maybe we can just marvel at the efforts of people over millennia, from the Buddha sitting under the Bodhi tree to the modern philosopher and neuroscientist who have asked themselves the question, who am I? But most of all, I think we owe our debt to those amongst us who bravely bear witness to our altered selves. Whether we do so voluntarily, like monks and nuns do when they meditate, or whether it's brought upon us by biology and circumstance, there is something remarkably robust about the processes that give rise to the totality of our sense of self. But there's something frighteningly fragile about them, too. They can crack. And any one of us at any time in our lives may have to confront such cracks. And that knowledge, I believe, should make us empathetic towards those of us dealing with altered selves. But I also believe that altered self should not be seen as the outcome of deficits or as the outcome of a lack of attributes considered normal. They are different ways of being. And it's the willingness of some of us to confront the self constructed nature that is helping make sense of the self for all of us. Thank you.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

That was science writer Ann Anil Ananthaswamy. His book is called the man who Wasn't Tales from the Edge of the Self. You can find his full [e-mail] thank you so much for listening to the show today. This episode was produced by Katie Monteleone, Harsha Nahada, James Delahousy and Fiona Guerin. It was edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour, Rachel Faulkner White and me. Our production staff at NPR also includes Kai McNamee and Matthew Cloutier. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Our audio engineers were Jimmy Keeley, Tiffany, Vera Castro, Patrick Murray and Neil Rauch. Our theme music was written by Ramtin Arablouei. Our partners at TED are Chris Anderson, Roxanne Hylash, Alejandra Salazar and Daniela Balarazzo. I'm Minouche Zamorodi, and you have been listening to the TED Radio Hour from npr.

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[Elise Hu]

Today.