Kurt Nelson 0:00 Kurt. Welcome to behavior grooves, the podcast that explores why we behave the way that we do. I'm Kurt Nelson Tim Houlihan 0:13 and I'm Tim Houlihan. We talk with researchers and other interesting people to unlock the mysteries of our behavior by using a behavioral science lens. Kurt Nelson 0:22 Yeah. And today's episode, we are going to be talking about convictions like, Tim Houlihan 0:28 how often have you been to jail? Kurt, just Kurt Nelson 0:30 once? And that was a fluke. But no, those aren't the convictions talking about today, we're going to be talking about convictions kind of in the sense of sacred values that we hold, and how those sacred values drive a lot of our beliefs and actions. Well, that makes Tim Houlihan 0:45 more sense. We had the pleasure of talking with Steve Sloman, researcher, author and teacher, who has written a great new book about the cost of conviction. It's a timely and important perspective on how people frame decisions and how relying on sacred values unwillingly, unwittingly leads to social polarization. Kurt Nelson 1:06 Yeah, in our conversation, Steve argues that while convictions are essential for social cohesion, they can lead to conflict and polarization. Now, Steve differentiates between sacred values which are absolute and based on our community and consequentialist beliefs, which focus in on outcomes, the Tim Houlihan 1:24 difference is key to understanding how we look at the world and the actions that we take in it. Kurt Nelson 1:30 Yeah, it's a fun conversation that goes from the etymology of the word zealots to how moral decisions are made, to knowledge as a community based component, and how all of this can impact business. It's a wide ranging and fun conversation, and one that we think you will thoroughly, thoroughly enjoy. Tim Houlihan 1:49 We also think that you would enjoy and like being a member of our grooves community on Facebook. It's a community of like minded individuals where we get to explore some wide ranging deep and not so deep. Yeah questions, Kurt Nelson 2:04 not so deep sometimes, yeah, I would recommend right now that you stop this podcast and go, sign up. Go, go, do it. Okay, okay, you didn't do it. We know you didn't do it, so at least jot down a note so you remember to do it after listening to this podcast. Okay? And with Tim Houlihan 2:21 that, we invite you to sit back with a double pour of conviction, not the jail kind, and listen to our conversation with Steve Sloman. Tim Houlihan 2:38 Steve Sloman, welcome to Steve Sloman 2:39 behavioral grooves. Such a pleasure to be here. Thank you. We're really glad Tim Houlihan 2:44 to have you here. Thanks for joining us. We're going to start with a couple of quick, short answer, no pressure, just fun questions. And the first would be, would you prefer to learn a new language or a new instrument? Steve Sloman 2:57 A new language? Can I explain? Yeah, you know, I've been, I've been struggling to learn two instruments my whole life, and if I could just learn one of them, I would be happy. Tim Houlihan 3:12 So what? So, what language would you prefer? Well, my Steve Sloman 3:17 French is okay. I mean, I mean, like, I'd love to really learn it, but if I had to learn another one, I guess it would be Spanish because of its frequency. Kurt Nelson 3:31 Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah. I am the typical American. I know English, and I would love to have at least one. And Spanish would be that one if I picked it as well. So, okay, Steve, second, second, really difficult question. Here, are you a coffee drinker or a tea drinker? Coffee? Tim Houlihan 3:51 Okay, it sounded pretty confident. Steve Sloman 3:53 Well, you know, I mean, that's just the fact about my daily routine. I need the caffeine. I But, Kurt Nelson 4:03 you know, it's, it's interesting. I never used to have, like, coffee or tea in the morning all the time. And then past 10 years, I have, and it's hard if I don't have that coffee, I don't have that tea, I it's, it's hard to kind of get moving. It's crazy Steve Sloman 4:19 substitute for coffee for you. Wow. Tim Houlihan 4:25 Okay. Steve, third speed round question, true or false? Most people know less about their own beliefs than they think they do. Unknown Speaker 4:34 True. Tim Houlihan 4:36 Love that, love that. Okay, we are going to come back to that and talk more at length as we get into our conversation. Kurt Nelson 4:43 Okay, last of our speed round question, Steve, would you agree or disagree with the statement? Humans are naturally truth seekers. Steve Sloman 4:54 I think I would disagree with it, although you know, with. A huge qualifier. I think that humans are motivated by many things. Truth is one of them, Kurt Nelson 5:08 but it's only one, just one of them. Many. Tim Houlihan 5:13 Yeah, well, we're talking with Steve about his new book, the cost of conviction, and let's start with understanding something the title implies that there might be something wrong with having strong convictions, like, when I read that, am I getting that wrong? Is there a problem with the idea of having, you know, a conviction, a strong conviction, about something? Steve Sloman 5:35 Yeah, I think there is. And what's wrong with it is sort of at a higher level, that is, it leads to conflict, it leads to intransigence, and it leads to polarization. I think conviction is, to some degree, destroying our society at the moment, Tim Houlihan 5:52 and yet, isn't it? Kind of like, I just think about, like growing up, it seemed like strong convictions were sort of the core of what makes individuals, you know, individuals and what makes society strong. How did we get that wrong? Steve Sloman 6:09 That's interesting. So look, I don't think you have that wrong. The book does not present a one dimensional view of what it means to have beliefs, attitudes and convictions. We have to have convictions. You're absolutely right. The point of the book is that we overuse them, right? We deploy them when we should be thinking in a different way about things. So I agree with you completely that it's absolutely critical that we have strong convictions, although, interestingly, I would put it differently than the way you did. I don't think it's individual conviction. The point about our convictions, in one sense of conviction, is that they represent our social identities. We get our convictions from our communities. So even if we think they're individual convictions, even if we think we personally, you know, think that abortion is murder, or think that, you know, we should believe in gun control, we tend to get those views from the people around us. So there are as much social convictions as they are individual convictions. Kurt Nelson 7:32 It's interesting. I did not know the etymology of the word zealot, and you kind of talk about that, and I wish I found super fascinating. So could for our listeners, could you just describe the history of that word a little bit? Because I think it plays into what you're just talking about here, the community kind of component of Steve Sloman 7:49 this? Well, the Zealots were a Hebrew tribe a couple of 1000 years ago in in what is currently the Land of Israel, and they are a group that stood up to the Romans when the Romans conquered Israel. And in fact, they refused to give up, and they ended up climbing this mountainside in the desert in the southern part of Israel in an area called in a location called Masada. And they fought the Romans up until the it was clear they were going to be conquered, and then they engaged in ritual suicide. So since that time, zealot has come to mean someone who will, you know, at the extreme, die for their cause, yeah, Tim Houlihan 8:46 that is extreme. That's about as extreme as we can get. Steve Sloman 8:50 That's right. I want to get back. We see it today all the time, yeah, I would say, for instance, people who refuse. I mean, you could argue that some people who refuse to get vaccinated are willing to die for their cause. Tim Houlihan 9:08 Yeah, yeah, that's a pretty, pretty stark example in the world that we live in, and they're, they're probably going to be more of those, those people as it relates to as as your your thesis is about the influence of the community, not so much the individual convictions. And yet this, this whole idea of community influencing convictions, is, is a big departure from, like the message from the enlightenment, where we're, we're individually rational human beings, right, you know, and we've had, you know, Kahneman Tversky introduced that idea to us. You know, 40 years ago. We're not or Herb Simon going back to bounded rationality, but, but I kind of got that you're taking it in some ways, sort of to the next level. Is that, is that a fair. Way of saying, am I? Am I overstating? Steve Sloman 10:03 You know, I like it. I'm happy to have my work described that way, you know, I think so. Oh, what's his name? The author of sapiens. Harari, yeah, what's his first no other, you've all Harari. You've all know. You've all Harari. Right? He wrote a review of my last book, the knowledge illusion, which I know I said I didn't want to talk about, but I'm Unknown Speaker 10:33 talking about what. Tim Houlihan 10:34 We're not gonna talk about it. Steve Sloman 10:38 And the point of that book was to say that we depend on our communities to think right, that the world is so complex that we and we don't appreciate how complex it is. We don't appreciate our inability to understand it because we rely on other people, and we should think about thinking as a community activity. And so what we're constantly doing is outsourcing our reasoning and outsourcing our decisions to other people, to other members of our community. And and there's a sense, and he described that as sort of an the ultimate form of irrationality, right? That we're irrational down, you know, to our very roots, in the sense that we're not willing to even think things through. We're not willing to even try and, you know, I, I mean, that's a, clearly, an overstatement, but I think it's true about many of our most precious and most important beliefs and attitudes, like the thing that guides our votes, for instance. So yeah, I that that is a kind of anti enlightenment perspective. And you know, as as as brilliant as the Enlightenment philosophers were, I do think they got some things wrong, at least at the descriptive level. So I'm a psychologist. I'm not a philosopher, and I don't pretend to, you know, have the goods on what we should do or what truth is, but I do. I am willing to make claims about how people what people do and and how people justify the things that they do. And it's pretty clear to me that we're not entirely rational and that we depend on others. And when we think about reasoning, we should think about a larger community rather than an individual. Tim Houlihan 12:44 So to what degree then is, is changing these these values, these pillars of the way that we think and believe and feel about education versus like social incentives? Steve Sloman 13:00 Okay, so in order to answer that question, can I sort of get to the heart of what the book is about, the cost of conviction? Kurt Nelson 13:07 Yes, yeah, yeah, forgive me for maybe consequentialism here, maybe something like Steve Sloman 13:13 that. Well, exactly, do you want your feel free to articulate it yourself. Kurt Nelson 13:19 No, I want to hear you. Steve Sloman 13:23 So the book is about two strategies we have for making decisions, right? One is the strategy we think we use all the time, which is to base our decisions on what the outcomes of the various options are. And this is called generally consequentialism, right? We think about the consequences of our actions. But it turns out that for certain kinds of decisions, social decisions, political decisions, decisions we sometimes refer to as moral we're actually guided by what are often called sacred values without the religious connotation, right? These are values that aren't about outcomes. They're about actions. And the thing about our values about actions is they tend to be absolute, right? So Thou shalt not murder, right? Or Thou shalt not take God's name in vain. Or Thou shalt not, you know, carry a concealed weapon perhaps, or Thou shalt not spit in the face of people who disagree with you. There, there are lots of these prohibitions and and sacred values about what we should do as well, that that guide our behavior, and that, I do think, provide a lot of social glue, right, because they come from our communities and we we consider people members of our community, if they have the right sacred. Values. So to answer your question about the role of education, I mean, there's informal education, there's formal education. I do think our sacred values come from a sort of informal education. That is, we acquire them from our society, initially, from our parents and our siblings and the kids on the street, and then, you know, from thought leaders in our communities, whereas our consequentialist beliefs. So when we talk about consequentialism, what we're talking about is how we understand the world and what causes things to happen. So there's a deep kind of causal analysis that's involved in thinking consequentially, as well as values about which outcomes we want and which we want to avoid. Well, Tim Houlihan 15:57 can you can you give us? Give us the listeners, a quick example of what would be a consequentialist way of looking at this and what is a sacred value. Steve Sloman 16:07 Okay? So, you know, we could start with the mundane and perhaps later move on to something a little more high bro, but we might choose our toothpaste because we think it tastes good, and we'll clean our teeth. So we're concerned about the consequences of the choice of toothpaste, right and and that determines which toothpaste we buy. Alternatively, we could choose the toothpaste that has the fewest additives, because we have a sacred value about not consuming additives, right? Or we might choose the one that we believe has the smallest impact on the environment, because we have a sacred value about sustainability. So these are two very different strategies for making a very simple choice. And yeah, one is consequentialist, and the other is based on sacred values. And the and the one based on sacred values is more absolute in the sense that I'm going to be I'm less likely to be able to talk you out of that decision, that Tim Houlihan 17:18 choice, yeah, and we're going to be less likely to compromise on those sacred values and right, Steve Sloman 17:23 yes, yes. And that's what our data show, yeah. Tim Houlihan 17:26 And what's the problem with that, or the benefit of it? Actually? Steve Sloman 17:33 Well, that's Yeah. So that's an interesting question. What's the benefit of it? That that's less obvious, but I, you know, I think that probably the main benefit is social cohesion, right? So when you have a group of people who have the same absolute value, then they can bond over that. And, you know, religious groups do, but all kinds of groups do, academic groups do, right? So different fields have different sacred values. So, you know, one sacred value of my field is that data should win out, right? That is, we should choose theories according to which theory is best supported by the evidence. That's a sacred value that that you know, may you may not find in, I don't know, certain humanities fields or artistic fields, right there, they're concerned about other things. So the benefits are that it allows social cohesion and that it makes it easier to have a conversation, because you're starting with the same set of premises, right? The costs are that you're seeing things from only a single perspective, and thus you're well, so you're seeing things from only a single perspective. And as a result of that, you're more and more entrenched into this one point of view, and to this degree that point of view is at odds with the point of view of others, you're creating a difference between you and others, and what happens over time is that people groups tend to define their their sacred values in order to maximally distinguish them from those of Other groups, particularly other groups that they're competing with, so that they be come more and more different and see the other group as more and more the enemy. And there's no way to bridge that, because these are absolutist sort of beliefs, right? And so that leads to an inability to have conversation. Conversations with people outside your circle, people who don't share your sacred values, it becomes harder to reach compromise. It leads to polarization and to war. Kurt Nelson 20:12 Steve does it always tend to get further and further separating those in the research from what you've seen. It never kind of like, Oh, we're good here and we can just stay here. Does it always kind of separate out more? Steve Sloman 20:25 Yeah, well, so that's, that's a historical question. You know, I'm not, I'm not an historian, so I don't, I don't feel really competent to provide an informed answer about that, although you know what? Common sense tells you that even though there is this dynamic pushing groups apart, there are other dynamics as well. Right? People like to avoid war for the most part, right? They don't like to see their houses bombed, and so people will try to reach compromise despite differences, sometimes force wins, as we're seeing in the news all the time these days, yeah. So yeah. I mean, so clearly the answer is no, it doesn't always follow that dynamic. But I do believe that this is one social force amongst others, that is sort of constantly pushing that's sort of invariant. Kurt Nelson 21:28 Hey, this is Kurt, and we want to say thanks for listening to behavioral grooves, and we hope that you're enjoying this episode, but it feels a little bit one sided. You're hearing from us, but we're not hearing from you. Tim Houlihan 21:40 This is Tim, and we have two suggestions to remedy that. The first is join our Facebook page and engage with us. We want to talk Kurt Nelson 21:49 with you. We want to hear your perspectives, and hopefully our Facebook page might be the place to have some of that interaction. So please, please, come and join us. The Tim Houlihan 21:59 other recommendation we have for you is to leave us a quick rating, you know, the little five star thing at the bottom of your app, or a short review. Just leave us a few words about what you like about behavioral groups. We very much appreciate Kurt Nelson 22:11 it. Thanks, and we now return you to our regularly scheduled programming. Tim Houlihan 22:17 Speaking of research for the book, was there anything that was really surprising to you as you were collecting data? Like, Oh, didn't, didn't expect this. Yeah, so Steve Sloman 22:30 there is this, you know, this, this standard meme in psychology that people are driven to believe members of their in group and not believe members of their out group. The Tim Houlihan 22:47 messenger having a important effect on what we consider to be believable or meaningful to us, right? Yes, Steve Sloman 22:57 absolutely. You know, from my perspective, it's even deeper than that in the sense that to the degree you think that knowledge is an element of a community, as opposed to something that exists inside the skull, then what you know becomes a matter of who you Trust, right? Because that's the relation that binds social networks and that creates knowledge in a way. And that view would predict that if someone's in your in group, if they're a trusted member of your in group, you should believe what they say, and if they're an untrusted member of an out group, then you shouldn't right if, if your president says it, you should trust it, and if Russia's president says it, then, well, who could it? Turns out that it's not nearly that simple. Yeah, so the data are quite complicated, and I can't pretend that I have fully gotten my mind around it yet, but there are lots of cases where we actually give equal weight to so for instance, we tend our data show that if you ask people the degree to which they understand something, they're as influenced by the understanding of experts from their in group as they are experts from their out group. Now it's not like all the data say that. There are other people's studies which show the opposite, but I was surprised by how hard it was to replicate those findings. Kurt Nelson 24:48 Wow. That is surprising when you think about it, because, again, the natural inclination. I mean, you look at the world today, you see the at least in America, you see the political parties. You see the beliefs of the other side, and you go, yeah, they're just believing that side. And no matter what I tell them or say to that uncle or that you know, cousin of yours that is on the other side, they're never going to believe me, because that's not part of the narrative. And but what you're he, what I'm hearing you say, is it's a little more complicated than that, right? Steve Sloman 25:23 Yes, yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. Now, of course, you know, we're testing a particular group of people. We tend to do our studies online, and so, you know, we're testing a group of people that are sophisticated enough with technology, that they can engage in this online market, and they do a lot of studies, and so they're not, you know, coming at these things completely naively. They're probably quite sophisticated and sort of guessing what we're up to. And that may be part of it, but that's, I think, exactly part of the complexity that that you're pointing out, Kurt, is Kurt Nelson 26:05 it, would it be better than and kind of, I don't want to infer what you're from your book here, but to use more of a consequentialism frame versus a value frame in those conversations, I know you talked about toothpaste, that that's there, but I'm alright, if we're talking conceal and carry, right, and you bring in, how would you recommend somebody trying to having a conversation, not necessarily trying to get them to fully sway, but at least take into consideration your side of an argument is that, is that a fair question? Steve Sloman 26:43 So, so that's exactly where this book started, right? So, so it sort of picked up from where my previous book, the knowledge illusion, left off. What the knowledge illusion showed is that people have this sense of understanding how things work, like how policies about gun control work, they have a sense that they understand them better than in fact they do, and the way you show it is by asking them first, how well they understand it, and then ask them to explain how the policy works. And what you discover is that people can't explain it at all. They really, for them, have very little to say, so that when you again ask them how well they understand it, they actually reduce their own judgments, right? So they themselves are admitting that they don't understand the issues, the policies, as well as they thought they had, and it's possible that, you know, the starting point for the cost of conviction the new book is that one reason for that is that when you bring up a policy, people think about it in sacred values terms. So when you're thinking about something like, you know, gun control in sacred values terms, it's awfully Simple, right? If you're if you're a second amendment fiend, then all you say is, people have the right to carry guns, right? And the story you're done, the story's over, that one sentence is, is all you need. And and even if you're pro gun control, you know, you might have a sacred value, like, we should protect people from being murdered by guns. And that's sim. That's a simple statement that seems reasonable, that seems fair, but it actually implies that nobody should ever be able to carry a gun under any circumstances. And so that's also an extremist perspective based on sacred values. Tim Houlihan 28:51 So what you Steve Sloman 28:54 what the book suggests, is that what you should do is think about the issue and talk about the issue in consequentialist terms. And that's exactly what asking people to explain the effect of a policy does. It forces them to think about the issue in consequentialist terms, right? Because you have to think about what the policy would cause, what those effects would be, what the resultant effects of those effects would be, how things would interact to produce, you know, get more the world's really complicated. And so what happens when you try to spell all that stuff out, spell the consequences out, is you discover you don't really understand things as well as you thought you Tim Houlihan 29:44 did. And how does that impact people? Then, how does that impact the person that's thinking through that? Steve Sloman 29:50 So what we know, and a lot of this research was done by Phil Tetlock and Jonathan Barron, did a lot of this stuff too. Um Is that when people feel their sacred values are violated, they have a sense of outrage, right? They? Um, be they, they are more likely to engage in purification rituals, right in like to wash their hands, for instance, because they're dirty from this violation, there's a sense of disgust that arises when your sacred values have been violated. And so all of these things lead to people wanting to avoid that those violations and thus they become intransigent, right? Thus they try to frame everything as if breaking this simplistic rule I have is the wrong thing to do. Yeah, whereas if you can simply reframe the issue, get people to think and talk about it in consequentialist terms. What our data show is you're less likely to get some of these effects, you're less likely to get a sense of outrage, you're less likely to get people to think they understand the issue really well, and you're more likely to get a willingness to compromise on the issue. Kurt Nelson 31:30 Steve does your research show, are there people who are predisposed to having stronger conviction, stronger values than others? I mean, we think about psychological personality profiles are, are there any components around there that you know of? Steve Sloman 31:49 Yeah. So as far as I know, there has not been a lot of research on that. There's actually been only a limited amount of research on this distinction between sacred values and consequential I mean, we've been aware of it since the 18th century, but there hasn't been a ton of psychological research on it. So I don't have a solid sort of database to answer to your question, my kind of informed guess is that the answer is yes. You know people who are more likely who are diagnosed with OCD, I suspect are more likely to be sacred values oriented and less consequentialist oriented. But you know that that's the hypothesis. I also suspect that it's very domain dependent. So, you know, there are some people who are very religious and they have sacred values in the religious domain. But that doesn't mean when they turn to baseball, they're they're gonna also have sacred values, right? Yeah. So I do think it's the case that almost all of us, you know, like all of us except the psychopaths amongst us, have some sacred values, you know, like I have sacred values about environmentalism, right? And and others are other people have other sacred values. You know, things are differentially important to people. Tim Houlihan 33:29 A lot of our listeners are business leaders, and they're interested in applying some of these insights that we get from behavioral science in general to their work. And I'm wondering if you might have any thoughts, Steve about about the kinds of things that business leaders could take away. Are there? Are there any like sacred value traps that that business leaders might suffer from? Steve Sloman 33:59 So these issues have been central in conversations about business for years now, right there's been discussion about how concerned businesses should be with issues like governance and sustainability and and businesses have taken stands which sometimes have really helped them with their customer or client base and and sometimes, more recently, have hurt them, as there's been, you know, repercussions from the current administration For taking too strong a stance on these issues. So I'm not sure about whether there are traps, but I do think there are two classes of concerns businesses really need to consider with regard to these issues. So one has to do with their image. Edge and how they present themselves. So, you know, do they want to be thought of as the company that holds dei in high esteem or not? And that's going to depend on who their employees are and and who their customers are and who it is that they want to appeal to, and if they don't want to appeal to a very specific sort of political demographic, then they're going to have to avoid showing these sorts of, you know, sacred values, and instead sell themselves as being all about efficiency and profit maximization, right? Which, of course, has its own costs because it suggests you don't care about anything. But the other thing is how they advertise, right? And how they sell products, and it's very clear that consumers care about about the value and and a lot of companies are very aware of this, which is why sustainability, you know, being good for The environment or being good for health are often properties that are really pushed in publicity, in advertising, because people respond to this. But you know, there is, of course, a trade off between appealing to someone's sacred values and appealing to their pocketbook. That's the trade off that I think businesses have to think Kurt Nelson 36:45 through when you're talking about this. It brought to mind Chick fil A versus McDonald's. You know, the closing on Sunday is a sacred value that, obviously Chick fil A has that sends a signal out to anybody that is, is going to partake in, in, you know, eating a fast food chicken sandwich. And so I think that's, it's an interesting component. And what I'm making an assumption on is, you talked about the idea of changing. You know, sacred values are harder to shift and change. So once you capture a consumer, they're more they're less likely, probably then from a sacred value to, you know, be be convinced to switch over to some other kind of product or or company. Would would you agree? Or is that a big kind of jump out there. Steve Sloman 37:41 So I think that's very insightful, and I think you're absolutely right in the example that you just used is very powerful. I didn't know that about Chick fil A and, you know, and I won't reveal whether it makes me more or less likely, to be honest, I've never been there which information? I'm not even Kurt Nelson 38:05 sure we didn't ask that as a speed round question. Then, you know, there you go. Steve Sloman 38:09 You know, we we've done these studies were comparing people's willingness to invest in Patagonia versus H, M, oh, yeah, similar sort of distinction, right? Like Patagonia sells itself on the basis of its sacred values regarding the environment, whereas H and M is just about profit maximization. And what we do is we get people to frame issues either in a sacred values way or in a consequentialist way, we use this very simple technique that I developed with a colleague of mine, hyosuk Kim. We give people six words, and we ask them to generate a reason for investing in companies using these six words. And in one case, the six words are right, wrong, moral, absolute, sacred. And then the other case, the words are, I'm doing this for memories. They're not exactly this. Fair enough. Yeah, they're words like outcome, consequence, cause, effect, cost benefit. So we're sort of forcing them to generate a reason that's either based on sacred values or one that's based on consequences. Yeah, and then we say, now you have this, we're going to give you, you know, $1.50 to invest. Which company do you want to invest in? And what we find is they're more likely to invest in Patagonia if they've generated a sacred value reason, and they're more likely to invest in H M if they've generated a consequentialist reason. So this sort of puts a bit of a ban. Boundary condition on your idea? Kurt, yeah, because I don't think it's the case that we think about every company or every issue or anything, always in terms of sacred values or always in terms of consequences, right? Like, the real key idea here is that these are matters of framing. Yeah. So if you get people to frame things in one way, you can elicit one set of responses. If you get them to frame it in another way, you elicit a different set of responses. Tim Houlihan 40:35 Well said, really that is well said, Steve, here on behavioral grooves, we talk a lot about people finding their groove, people staying in their groove. You look like a pretty happy guy. I don't want to necessarily make the assumption that you're in, you're, you know, a good groove right now, but, but if you are in a good groove right now, what's, keeping you in a good groove? Steve Sloman 41:03 Okay, so I should imagine a world in which I'm in a good groove. All right? I actually, at this moment Kurt Nelson 41:14 framing this. We're framing this Steve Sloman 41:17 actually, you know, to be honest, I actually am doing pretty well when I when I'm not thinking about national politics. Unknown Speaker 41:27 Yeah, right, Kurt Nelson 41:28 we agree with you there, yeah, we're there, yeah. Steve Sloman 41:32 So this is a question that seems completely unrelated to the book, right? 100% Tim Houlihan 41:41 completely unrelated, yes. And I hope you don't mind that we're we're No, no, I'm throwing Steve Sloman 41:46 this at you. So I think there are two things right now. One is that I have found new directions in my professional life that have sort of reawakened my interest and vigor in what I'm doing. I was feeling that I was sort of doing more and more of the same, and I was getting kind of sick and depressed and not enjoying talking to students and teaching courses, and so I'm doing something a little different, and that's helped a lot. Tim Houlihan 42:27 Like, like, like, physically sick you met you use the word sick. Were you? Were you starting to Steve Sloman 42:31 feel no, I meant emotionally. Oh, okay. Was not, not really enjoying what I was doing. Yeah, okay. And that's had all sorts of repercussions, like, I think people like me better now, because, wow, I'm more easygoing. But the other thing is, I've started a pretty serious meditation practice, okay? And I'm using an app called waking up, which is designed and led by Sam Harris, who's a philosopher, neuroscientist, who has a lot of experience with these issues and and the reason that it's working for me is because there is zero religious content, right? It's just about discovering yourself or your lack of self, in your consciousness and and sort of trying to practice, exert. Exerting some control over your attention. Kurt Nelson 43:47 And did you? Did you try meditation before this? And I'm asking because myself, I have, I have various points in my life I have attempted, and in some cases I did okay. I was able to kind of get into into my groove and have that be a more regular practice, but then I would fall out, and it's hard to get back in and in different things. Is just wondering if this is a this is a time where it's now hit really well, and it's working, or if this is the first time you've tried it, Steve Sloman 44:26 well, so I'll tell you my history with this. You know, when I was a teenager, I read, I loved Herman Hesse. I read lots of Herman Hesse books, and in one of his books, he had a hero who could only do two things. Those two things were to wait and to fast, right? Those were the only things this guy was capable of. He was sort of a Buddha esque kind of figure, and I always felt like these are the two things I cannot do. I. I'm the worst possible person for either of these things, and that was my attitude to towards meditation for decades. Yeah, you know, like I didn't even try it really, because I just didn't think I could do it. I thought it was incapacity, it was my own weakness. But then my wife and I sort of went to a workshop and and she was doing a little so I thought I'd try. And I started really easy, like it, I would meditate for eight minutes a day. And that was really hard at first, but it became easier, and I extended and I extended it. And so I'd say about like two and a half three years ago, I just started practicing, and I've now, and I'm now doing 24 minutes every morning, and it's actually not all that painful most of the time. And so the waking up app, I think, is something that has helped me to continue it, but it's changed it. So I started with guided meditations, right where I was like learning to relax, and I would relax my body piece by piece. But this is a very different approach. This is a kind of mindfulness meditation in which you're not guided. You're really just supposed to be feeling your own consciousness. Which I have achieved, I think not at all. Yeah, Kurt Nelson 46:41 which is, which is, you know, the practice of this, right? Yeah, yeah. How Tim Houlihan 46:46 I wish Oliver Berkman were in our conversation right now. I'd love to hear his, his thoughts about this. That's, it's really cool, by the way. I just, I think that, you know, this is something that we see a lot. We hear from people when we talked about, when we talked to them about sort of being in their groove. A lot of it has to do with newness and learning and taking on something fresh and and bringing, for lack of a better word, novelty into their into their life. I'm also kind of curious. Kurt, if you don't mind, I'm always looking a little bit for permission here, but Steve, if you were stuck on a desert island for a year and you had a listening device with you, but it could only, only take two musical artists on that on that listening device, you get their their entire catalog, but only two. Which two? Which two musical artists would you choose? Steve Sloman 47:45 Well, one is easy, Paul Simon. Oh, Unknown Speaker 47:48 I Tim Houlihan 47:49 applaud that choice. Yes. Steve Sloman 47:52 I mean, I'm of the right age for Paul Simon, and he's just got such a huge collection, yeah, of incredible music that, I think he's someone you know, that would would provide a fairly large set of things to listen Tim Houlihan 48:11 to, yeah, massive catalog, yeah, Steve Sloman 48:15 but not just massive, like, massive catalog of brilliant music Kurt Nelson 48:20 and a variety of styles too. I mean, it's not, it doesn't, it's not the same. I mean, there's very different sounds in in his work. Tim Houlihan 48:28 Yeah, multiple Grammy Award winning records throughout his career too. Steve Sloman 48:32 Yeah, every every decade, there's something new and brilliant, exactly. And to be honest, it's very hard to think of anyone else like that. So it would be easy for me to name people that I would like to listen to, but you need someone that has a treasure chest of stuff, yeah? And so who has such a huge treasure, you know, like Dylan has a pretty large collection, so he wouldn't be bad. Yeah, yeah. Tim Houlihan 49:03 What you could argue about variety, but, I mean, he's been through all kinds of different phases. But I grew up listening to Dylan. And there's sometimes I go back and I listen to something, it's like, was that from 1970 or from 1990 like, I can't quite tell sometimes, because it's all Dylan. It's so Dylan esque, okay, it's, it gets, it's almost heavy handed with his own style. Unknown Speaker 49:28 Interesting, yeah, Steve Sloman 49:31 yeah, I can see that you can distinguish, say, the early 60s from the 2000 10s, right? Tim Houlihan 49:38 Yes, I mean free will. And the freewheeling album is a radically different thing than highway 66 highway 61 Yeah, very much. Steve Sloman 49:49 How about Neil Young? Kurt Nelson 49:52 It's where my head was going. I was actually thinking Neil Young, Steve Sloman 49:58 He shoots, he scores. Why I'm. Gotta be honest, I share a property with Neil Young. You share a property with Neil? Yeah, he's so you know how the song helpless starts, right? There is a town in North Ontario where, you know, Tim Houlihan 50:16 dreams comfort, memories to spare. Yeah, right, Steve Sloman 50:21 that and all my changes were there. That's sort of the critical phrase for me. All my changes were there. And I actually grew up in Toronto, not too far from Northern Ontario, where, oh, in fact, as a little kid, Neil Young's father was a sports writer for the Toronto Star, and I read a book called A boy at the leafs camp when I was like 10, Kurt Nelson 50:48 I did not know that. Okay, Tim Houlihan 50:50 wow. I I had also heard that his dad was a poet, or that that wrote poetry on the side, which is apparently where Neil got his poetic framing. You look surprised as Is that Steve Sloman 51:04 is that often I haven't done the biography. I think, you know, I'm just talking personal experience, Tim Houlihan 51:10 yeah? So it's that, it's that upbringing that, that you share, then the Yeah, Ontario Steve Sloman 51:17 kind of thing, yeah? But you know, I love his music and Kurt Nelson 51:21 and I begin a variety of a variety of his work, you know, so it does sound very different. And, you know, rocking in the free world is very different than some of his than horrible collaborations with Tim Houlihan 51:34 yeah trans or yeah the albums they he is a musical explorer. Thanks for that, Steve and and thanks very much for being a guest on behavioral grooves today. We really appreciate it. We've enjoyed this conversation. Steve Sloman 51:49 Thanks so much for having me. I've had a great time. Kurt Nelson 51:59 Welcome to our grooving session where Tim and I share ideas and what we've learned from our discussion with Steve. Have a free flowing conversation and groove on whatever else comes into. Our convicted brain Tim Houlihan 52:10 stem has been like in jail. Yes, in Kurt Nelson 52:13 jail, we are we are convicted that that's what happened. That's what happens. Yeah, so that's there no in all reality, this was a really interesting conversation we had. I thought it was fun. I thought there was a lot of things that made me think, like this idea of sacred values versus this consequentialist kind of thinking, Yeah, you know, that was really cool. No, yeah, Tim Houlihan 52:41 I like that as well. Yeah. I think the thing that I was hoping that we could focus on today is that our beliefs come more from communities than from sort of the ground up. No, like most of our beliefs, a large portion of what we believe is deeply influenced by the people around us. Rather than I thought about my welded up from inside and, you know, and I was thinking about it. It's like, how do I know the Earth is round? Yeah, my mom told me, I didn't go out and measure it, Kurt Nelson 53:13 you know, that's what they taught me in preschool. You know, it's all the little things we get from the television, everything else. It's like, this is, you know, Sesame Street, exactly, all of those. And so those beliefs that we hold are based upon the community that we're in. If we're in a community that strongly believes one this is, I always thought about this, right? If I would have been born in the Middle East, I would have probably been raised Muslim. Most likely I would have been raised Muslim. If I would have been born in China, I would have had more Confucius or other, you know, different beliefs. It's there's nothing like where I am, where the proximity and the people around myself with blend into my beliefs and my sacred values that I hold. Tim Houlihan 53:54 Yeah, and that's, that's the other part, is that it's not just the belief, but those beliefs gets, get transmuted into sacred values that we hold so dear and so preciously. And I kind of love that that Daniel Dennett recently said that, you know, he's a famous atheist philosopher, but he said, like, one of the problems with religion is that we can just say, oh, religion is true, and that's 100% true, and so I don't have to really stop, have to think about it, right? So, because we're cognitive measures, that's really appealing, Kurt Nelson 54:29 because we can now save the energy, because I just know the truth, I don't have to think about if that is true or not true anymore, right? And that that's a really interesting thought. I think there is something about this aspect, regardless of what it's religion, or if it's of thought that, hey, if, if I hold something to be true and that's sacred belief for me, then I don't have to really think about that and that. That. Allows us to get through in this world. If I had to think about every single component, oh, it'd be overwhelming. You know, I have a general belief that people are good, all right, if I have to rethink that every single time that then leads to, all right, well, is Tim good today, or is he not good tomorrow? Is he? You know, is want to measure that, but, I mean, that's part of it, right? So, well, I think there's an interesting aspect. Tim Houlihan 55:26 And when, when we were talking about this with Steve, there was a connection to Annie Duke. I think you actually made a note. You're like, Doesn't this remind me of so looking in bed? Yeah. Kurt Nelson 55:35 Because I think there was this aspect that Steve was bringing up, is that we have to have some humility, that we have to be thinking about things not in absolutes, this idea that if we are to really move forward and get past some of the polarization, some of the negative aspects of this, of these sacred beliefs that we have, it really comes down to thinking about putting a percentage on to a certain degree, as Annie said, it's this. How strong is this? How sure are you of this belief? And for many of 99.999999% right, or somewhere up there. But also for a lot of them, oh, this is closer to 80 This is closer to 60% that this is true. And those are the ones where you kind of really have to make sure that you allow yourself that ability to say, All right, let's not just hold this. Because it's over 50 that it's absolute, which is the tendency that Annie talks about, okay, since we think it's 65% it's two thirds, then it's always going to be that way. And she talked about this idiot, no, like, when you're playing poker, if it's 70% you know, 333, out of 10 times, Tim Houlihan 56:47 it's gonna come it's not gonna come out that way. And I think this is also true for business leaders. Like, if we think about the way business leaders tend to think about oftentimes, rely on cultural norms as the truth, yes, as the sacred value when it may not actually work for the way the company needs to move going forward. Kurt Nelson 57:06 And I think about this all the time when we're working with leaders who you're dealing with them around incentives or different pieces, and they go, this worked for me. It really worked for five years ago or 10 years ago or 20 years ago, and this idea that they don't shift and change, or that that what works for them, their sacred value that works, or their belief that that works for them doesn't necessarily translate to others. So I think that's all good. I think that is good. Tim Houlihan 57:40 It ties into behavioral science on a couple of levels. And the first is sort of the social identity theory and how important it does for us as human beings to connect with our communities, to feel like we are connected. We're part of the social norm that we have some sense of of I'm part of this. And so I believe this in not just to be a part of it, but because that's the people that I associate with have said, This is what they believe. I'm believing and and we don't want to be kicked out. Kurt Nelson 58:10 Those those beliefs that are held by the community become ever more important because those are the reasons it pops on those sacred beliefs held by the community, and you start to challenge them, well, you're not being a good community member. You're not part of the tribe, therefore we'll kick you out of the tribe. That doesn't feel good to us, right? And I think there's also an aspect of framing, and how things get framed, like, you know, what do you believe versus? How does this actually work? Yeah, like this. This gets this consequentialist idea, exactly. And so that idea of, you've talked about this before, it's like, so toilets are pretty simple, right? But ask somebody, how well, how does a toilet actually work? Can you tell me, you know, there's water, you got the water down and it flows, but it has this, you know, again, I don't know, I don't know how this works. So, yeah, so I think there's some of that. So I think that's a really interesting exercise for people to do, or to think about, like those beliefs change that that question is, is this what I believe to how do I know that this is true, or how does this belief work? What are the elements behind it? So? So Tim Houlihan 59:25 I'm just going to take that one step further and say, if you're listening to this right now, ask yourself which of your strongest convictions might be more borrowed than built. Which of your convictions might be something that that when you really stop to think about it, maybe you didn't construct it from whole cloth, Kurt Nelson 59:45 right? But that's I mean, borrowed an idea like our convictions are borrowed. They're not ours. We're just we're renting them for a while, true, but they we didn't build them. We didn't make them. This is. Is, there's no IKEA effect here. This is, you know, we didn't build them from scratch. We didn't take that moment. So that's a really great question to ask yourself, is, is, you know, which of my beliefs do I really feel given where I am in my life and everything? And you can't escape. You can't escape having the your your thoughts being influenced by your parents, by your what happened when you were younger? All of those things, they're what formed you. But do they still hold true today? Or are you just holding on to them? You still borrowing them when you really maybe need to borrow some new ones or build some new ones? So Tim Houlihan 1:00:36 and by the way, when I'm asking this question, it if you want to take this to religion or philosophy or democracy, I mean, you could, you could do something really huge with it, right? But it doesn't have to be. It could just be about, what belief do I have about my company or my team or about me as a leader? Yeah, how does and what are the odds that I am right about that or not, Kurt Nelson 1:01:00 right about that? Getting back to me, getting back Yeah, so I think True, true wisdom really starts with that humility of questioning our certainty on things. And is that certainty coming from with from us, or is that certainty coming because it was something that our parents taught us, and maybe it doesn't hold true anymore, and it may feel uncomfortable to admit that uncertainty, but it's that uncertainty. It's in that uncertainty where we find better solutions. Yeah, I Tim Houlihan 1:01:34 think light bulbs, automobiles, NASA, like they questioned the status quo and they said, What could it be? How right are we about this or that? And came up with it Kurt Nelson 1:01:45 with new ideas. All right, so anything. No, I think, I think that, okay, that will do it. Yeah. And if you haven't noticed, we're here together, which is really kind of strange, and it's kind of fun. We're also going to be together for a very special 500th episode, eight year anniversary party that is coming up in Minneapolis in October of 2025 hopefully this episode gets published before then. I hope so too. Yeah, I don't know. It might be. Maybe this might be, it might be too late. You might have already missed it. But anyway, details will be coming. Look out on the a groove community. We'll have all the information up there, but we'll also get get it out. So yeah, yeah, Tim Houlihan 1:02:28 come we would love to see you. We hope that you use this idea of questioning your beliefs and where they come from, and we use it. You use it because you go out and find your group. Kurt Nelson 1:02:39 Thank you. You. Transcribed by https://otter.ai