Guided Mastery and Developing Self Confidence

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I'm Angela Duckworth I'm Stehen Dener, and you're listening to No Stupid questions Today on the show, where do intrusive thoughts come from Oh no. Now I have this unwanted thought. Oh wait, no, I thought about it again. Also, how can you become a more confident person? I would be confident if I succeeded, but I can't succeed without the confidence Angela, we have a listener question today from one Chris Levvenberg, and I think you are going to love this question. Okay, I'm ready for it. Chris writes to say, I was talking with a friend recently And he admitted that he sometimes had awful thoughts, such as slapping a stranger on the street to see what sort of reaction he'd get. or at a pool party, you get an urge to push a stranger in the pool. So I want to be friends with Chris's friend, I have to say this sounds fun. Chris continues, This friend is the most gentle, good natured person I know. So I was surprised that he had these thoughts I admitted to him that I've always had those thoughts too, but I thought I was the only one doesn't necessarily always involve other people. Sometimes standing at a red light, I think about running into oncoming traffic or jumping off a tall structure, and I have zero suicidal tendencies I'm wondering if this is something more common than I imagined Is there a psychological basis for violent fantasies that we have no apparent motivation to enact If the two of us normally gentle and kind people, Chris concludes have been harboring these strange thoughts. It makes me wonder if many people are and if so So interesting. These thoughts are what are called intrusive thoughts. That's the clinical term from psychotherapy. And it's been studied in the context of obsessive compulsive disorder, OCD. I mean, just imagine that you're sitting quietly in your room, drinking a cup of tea and an intruder just burst in and starts doing crazy things. It is a little bit like that It almost feels like there's another person in your head who's saying things or thinking things. Now, this is the thing that I'm a little confused by from Chris's note. When Chris says, hey, I have a friend and they have these thoughts like slapping a stranger on the street or getting an urge to push a stranger in the pool, Now I might be splitting hairs here, but There's a big distinction in the clinical research on OCD, et cetera, between a thought and an urge. In fact, this is just a general distinction in psychology. You might have the thought could push this person into the pool, or you could have the urge, like a feeling of I'm about to do it, I want to do it. I think that intrusive thoughts often are thoughts that are not urges. I see. And since Chris is only talking about his friend, I'm wondering whether Chris is making that distinction. But if you're having intrusive thoughts without The urgees, I think these are not only common, but pretty benign In terms of common, how common? I don't know what the epidemiological statistics are about how often people have intrusive thoughts. It depends on how you define them to. There's intrusive thoughts like running into traffic, and then there's also intrusive thoughts like, say you walk by a stranger and you just think for a moment, what would they look like without their clothes on? Or know what would happen if I struck up a conversation with this person Depending on where you draw that line, then you're going to have a higher or lower number in the population. But one thing that's unequivocal is that all human beings Have Uninvited thoughts, let's go back to that image. You're sitting having a cup of tea in your living room and somebody bursts through the front door of your house, uninvited. And that is in a way you having your own little conscious intentional stream of thinking. And then there's this thought that comes unbidden, unwanted, and bursts in And I think that, you could argue happens to quite literally all people at some point and in some form So when it comes to these intrusive thoughts, what was interesting is Chris says it right there in the email. I've always had those thoughts, but I thought I was the only one So is this a case of what your tribe calls pluralistic ignorance where you don't have a good sense of what other people think about Things is exactly a case of pluralistic ignorance, which is when you think you're the only one, like I'm the only one who feels like they don't fit in or I'm the only one who noticed that there's something wrong here. And where pluralistic ignorance happens is when the behavior or the thought or whatever it is is private. It's hidden. And so exterior of what's going on with other people, and then you just assume what's really happening in their minds and you of course can't know. I mean, the more we talk about this, I think that all of my thoughts are intrusive thoughts by this point. There's nobody having tea in the living room in my head. Everybody's bursting in as a party crasher. I guess when I think about actual thoughts that I have, of course there's some intentionality, especially when you're working on a project or problem or something But thoughts are always coming into my mind. So I'm not one of those people who has no injuries of thoughts. On the other hand There's plainly a continuum here, from relatively harmless and perhaps even wonderful, intrusive thoughts to violent, hurtful thoughts, taboo thoughts. So can you describe the continuum? and I'm curious especially at what point that continuum tips into what we would define as a mental illness. Let's begin with the most benign or unemotional example. The great Dan Weagner, a psychologist who was really just a towering figure in social psychology all the way up to his death about a decade ago. So Dan Wegner was a professor of psychology at Harvard and he did the famous white bear study. Have you ever heard of the white bear? Oh, the white bear, I have. I don't know why. White bear, I'm sure there's some. I always wondered about white bear too, because white bear sounds like a polar bear and then I'm thinking about Antarctica. These are myi thoughts So anyway, tell us about the white bear. So in this experiment, what Dan Wegner asked participants to do is to just speak out loud, like talk through their thoughts, just let the stream of consciousness flow And the key in this experiment is that in the treatment condition, he asked them not to think of a white bear. And weren't they supposed to ring a bell or something if they thought of the white bear? He had two ways of measuring how often these intrusive thoughts, in this case, a white bear barge into the living room of your consciousness. He had them ring a bell if they thought it becausecause he wasn't sure whether people would really be able to verbalize everything in their stream of consciousness, but he also had them talking. And whether you just note in the transcript or by the number of bell rings, what you find is that people are really bad at not thinking of a white bear. And in fact, when you ask them to not think of a white bear, then they think of a white bear of course, way more than if you never ask them to not think of a white bear So that's the paradox of thought suppression. So let me ask you this, if I'm thinking about pushing someone in a pool or worse into the path of an oncoming train, pushing someone off the top of a building Should I instead just think about a white bear and get me off that intrusive thought? Well, yes. And the reason I say that is that it was found that one way to not think of a white bear is actually to actively think about just anything else. like think about, you know eggs in him, eggs in him, eggs in him and then Mind is going off in a totally different direction. So yeah, if you want to not think about something, you actually do have to focus your attention on something else. That's one way to get yourself to not have intrusive thoughts. But I think actually a deeper solution is something that comes all the way back to obsessive compulsive disorder Really what is causing people distress from these intrusive thoughts isn't exactly just the thoughts themselves, but this kind of secondary like Oh no, now I have this unwanted thought. Oh wait, no, I thought about it again. And in a way, the answer to this is to accept intrusive thoughts. say you're trying to focus on your breathing and you're trying to be present in the moment. And then what keeps intruding on your consciousness are your worries about work And what sometimes is recommended in these mindfulness practices is like it's like as if a cloud has passed over the sun. Instead of being like, oh, no, I'm thinking about the future. you just gently let the cloud pass by the sun. So there's an acceptance that in a way is the escape route out of this thought suppression stress Oh my gosh, now I'm thinking about an even more cycle. And the reason I say it's related to OCD is that the obsession part in obsessive, compulsive, that refers to the thoughts and the compulsion is usually the behavior. So some would argue that the problem in this pathology is not that you have intrusive thoughts because everybody has them, but there is this reaction to your own thoughts, that's the problem So Chris and Chris's friend or for anybody listening to this, would you say that a steady stream of intrusive thought is a sign of something to be concerned about or does it depend on the thoughts themselves because we've been talking about a great spectrum of thoughts from innocuous, maybe a little pranky to quite violent Well, I think first of all that to acknowledge that we have intrusive thoughts and they're not all G rated, that is actually important for people to know. So yeah, people have violent thoughts about other people, about themselves. They also have sexual thoughts. and as long as they are not translated into behaviors, as long as they don't pass into cravings or urges that then become what you do, I think you're on the safe side. Like Jimmy Carter, he lusted in his heart. What did he say that he was okay with lusting his heart? Give me the whole Jimmy Carter thing. I don't know the whole Jimmy Carter thing. I just know that Jimmy Carter was this lovely, peaceful, gentle fellow. I don't know the context quote that has stuck with him forever somethingomet along the lines of no, I was never unfaithful to his wife, what's her name? Rosalie. Roseanne Rxsanne Rs. His wife, Mrs. Carter that he was faithful to her, but that he admitted to having lusted in his heart And I think a lot of people laughed at him kind of like, I'm laughing now and I probably shouldn't be. But yeah, who doesn't lust in their heart? Isn't the Catholic tradition that it's bad even just to think bad thoughts? Having been Catholic for many years, we call them impure thoughts. And I have to say that I as a boy and a young man, with my friends who are also boys and young men, thought it was really unfair that you had to confess to and say penance for impure thoughts. Just thinking. But then I will say this, I don't mean to offer a comparative religion mini course here, and I don't mean to assign values to one or the other. However, there is a principle in Judaism that what you think about someone If you hate them in your heart If you want to kill them in your heart, if you want their entire family to fall into a raging inferno and die in your heart, it doesn't matter. What matters is your acts. And I would argue that a lot of Christian thinking also coincides with that. But I did find that a very attractive feature of Judaism is the distinction between the thought and the act. Yeah. And to me, it was also an acknowledgement that everybody does have those thoughts, that they are natural, that whether you have a violent thought probably doesn't have that much connection to whether you are potentially a violent person because so many people have those, if not violent then very negative thoughts. Yeah. But I was wondering what is the effect of having these, let's say violent thoughts about other people? And I did find a piece here in the Atlantic from just a couple years ago It says Kai Tak Pun, an assistant psychology professor at the Education University of Hong Kong, led a team that asked a group of one hundred and thirty eight American adults to pick the person they hate the most. half were then asked to fantasize about doing something violent to that person O participants were asked to fantasize about taking any neutral action. Again, this is the person you hate the most The results suggested that those who fantasized about aggression were more likely to ruminate, which then lowered their perception of their own well being Thinking about hurting a sworn enemy bums people out, even if on a certain level, the idea is really appealing Does that resonate with you? Do you think that makes sense? I think what that research is, by the way, I'm really glad that I wasn't the person to ask for university permissions to run such an experiment. I can only imagine the human subjects review on the ethics of that. But anyway, I think that what that's getting at is that when people do have these taboo thoughts, these intrusive thoughts, they really get upset about them because they do feel more Catholic than Jewish. They're like, oh no I shouldn't lust in my heart. I shouldn't feel violent things in my heart. And even when it's experimentally induced, you're like, oh, well, someone just asked me to think about my worst enemy and think about these terrible things. Even then we still feel bad. That's very interesting Paul Rosin, the psychologist in my department. Razin has this idea of what he calls benign masochism. His idea is that we enjoy experiencing bad things that are not super, super terrible. like let's listen to a sad song. Let's watch a movie and cry. Let's put hot sauce on our tacos so that we're crying because it's so painful. It's this kind of like enjoyment we get from suffering That is such an interesting idea, the benign masochism. It reminds me. I mentioned this email from Chris to my daughter, Ana, because we talk about this stuff often she's taking a couple psych classes and some philosophies and it made her wonder about how natural violence is for all of us. In other words, is that an instinct that we all have at the ready in our minds? She was imagining that we might have these thoughts about committing these actions that we fear and that we know are bad because we know we're never going to do it And it's only going to be in our imagination, but there is a certain satisfaction of doing that. You're not going to do it, but you want to look at it. You want to Pay it out in a way. Yeah, and maybe even connect to the emotion, depending on how good your imagination is. L there's no way you would do it Bring yourself up to the brink of imagining having done the awful thing is a way to get in touch with a part of yourself that you will probably never be in touch with, thank goodness So I wonder when Chris writes about this notion, I'm not saying it's psychotherapeutic, but it is a way to connect to part of yourself that you will probably never encounter in real life, you want to see what it feels like. And maybe the reason why he thinks about jumping off a skyscraper running into oncoming traffic is really that he's afraid, right? He's afraid of falling or he's afraid of dying violently. Freud thought almost everything we do is a defense mechanism against them very deep, deep, unconscious pain and suffering, and that we have unhealthy defenses like denial, but we also have mature defenses that don't get us into more trouble, that're actually healthy. One of them is called anticipation. Anticipation is when you play out something in your head in a fantasy, and then you manage it. An example would be like The worst thing that you can imagine is that a loved one dies. And then you play it out in your head, you play out accident, you play out the phone call when they say just came back from the doctor. You do it so often that it's not so bad. It's that kind of coping mechanism. I mean, what are thoughts? They're just mental representations. They are your neurons lighting up and giving you the image of a truck or the image of a skyscraper, the image of doing something. And I do think there's so many reasons why That mental representation could get lit up and to understand that, oh, yeah, these are neurons in my brain. They're lighting up. There's lots of reasons why. it could be that I saw something that reminded me of, this could be that I have an underlying fear. Everybody's brain lights up in this way and they have thoughts that they want, but lots of times they're unbidden. and then just be like, oh, okay, and that to me is what these mindfulness approaches are at their core. They are your thoughts. Let them be like clouds passing before the sun So interesting. All right, let's see how smart you are. Can you tell me exactly what I am thinking right now? It this like the Johnny Carson trick Right, Karnak Based on this conversation, I'm seeing an image. The image is I'm in it. I am physically interacting with something Is this taboo? No This is kind of a mash up of everything we've been talking about so far Gosh. All right, you're on a skyscraper. Yes. Really? What? Yes, exactly. With a white bear? Yes. Okay. And what do I do? You want to throw the white bear off? Yes. Yes. You got it. Oh my gosh, you're good Still to come on no stupid questions, Stehen and Angela discuss the best tactics to increase your self confidence I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and dog g it. People like me No StupidQuestions is sponsored by Mint Mobile Mint mobile plans are only fifteen dollars per month. Wondering what's the catch There isn't one. There are no gimmicks and no gotches, J unlimited talk text and data, fast reliable coverage on the nation's largest five G network, and an award winning care team. That makes MintMobile a catch. You can bring your current phone and your number, choose from three, six or twelve month plans, and say goodbye to a monthly bill. Ditch overpriced wireless with Mint mobile It's so easy. Sign up online and get three months of premium wireless service for fifteen bucks a month If to get your new wireless plan for just fifteen bucks a month, go to mintmobile. com slash no stupid questestions. That's mintmobile. com slash no stupid questions. 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I was having trouble getting my baby to latch I couldn't get her to sleep I just want to make sure I'm doing everything right Family Connects NJ turns concerns into confidence Get advice from a specially trained registered nurse about issues affecting your family's health and wellbe. New Jersey families with a newborn can sign up for a free home visit. Visit familyilyconnectsnj d. org comm to schedule your nurse visit today Angie, I have a timeless question for you. best kind of question. I would like to think so It has to do with confidence with self confidence. I see this as a classic chicken or egg problem or maybe catch twenty two confidence. helps you succeed The way to build confidence is by having success. So the catch twenty two is, I would be confident if I succeeded, but I can't succeed without the confidence. Right. And then on the flip side It seems doubly punitive. if you're unsuccessful, then you're lacking confidence So How do you advise a person to be more confident What you're saying is that confidence leads to success, which leads to confidence. and basically that can be a virtuous cycle if it's all going well lots of confidence, lots of success, or it could be a terribly vicious cycle when you have a lack of self confidence, which leads to a lack of effort and motivation leading to lack of success. I will go back to The great Al Bandura, the psychologist at Stanford, who recently passed away early in his career, it was still the heyday of behaviorism. And that's when psychologists thought that what people did and what they didn't do could completely be explained by rewards and punishments. And Albandura thought that cannot be He was by the way, a clinical psychologist and he also had the benefit of talking to people who are suffering from depression, anxiety, phobia, et cetera. And he was like, o, this is not just about rewards and punishments. There is stuff that's going on in the head. And famously, he talked about what he called self efficacy I think you preferred that term to confidence for a variety of reasons. But I think the intuition that you and I have about what it means to be confident, like can I succeed in physics? Should I major in it or will be a disaster? Can I handle this new job? I think confidence is really effectively what Alanderant, can I do this if I try? And what he discovered in many, many, many experiments over many, many years was that how likely it is that you think you can do something if you try, Y confidence is enormously important to what you do and how you eventually perform And so this really was the death knell for the pure behaviorist idea of human motivation It was the death knell because why? I don't quite understand that. Because what Al Bandura found in his research is that it matters enormously what you think you can do, not just whether someone's going to pay you to do something or punish you if you don't. For example, why isn't this kid studying for this test? There's going to be lots of rewards that they do well, lots of punishments if they don't do well? And one of the reasons maybe the major reason that a kid might not be doing what you think is in their best interests is that there's this other thing called confidence. Students will also not try to do things that they think they can't do because it's a subjective understanding of your likelihood of succeeding. And where in this model does self esteem fall? What's the relationship between it and confidence? Are they first cousins, siblings Well, self efficacy, as Al Bandura would prefer to phrase it, and self esteem are correlated, but they are different. Self efficacy is, do I think I can do this thing if I try? Self esteem is how worthy of a person am I? They're obviously related because you might think like, if I can't do something, then I'm not worthy And I have a student who's really, really interested in this. They said it's because I have, this is my student speaking, I have very high self efficacy for doing well in psychology. I do not have very high self esteem. So that's an example of how these things can pull apart. Like I know I can do this if I try, but I don't feel like I'm a deserving or worthwhile person How often are self efficacy and self esteem not in sync? They are pretty correlated, meaning they tend to go together. If they were perfectly correlated, then there would be no people like my student. So I would say that in general, they do go hand in hand, but there are enough counterxamples to know that they're not exactly the same thing. What about self handicapping As I understand it, is you basically regulate the threat from low self esteem by tellelling yourself or even others that you're not going to do well at something. This idea of self handicapping, it was actually a term that didn't exist before Ed Jones, who is a really, really great psychologist. He died decades ago. so this is research from like the seventies. Ed Jones said, there's such an interesting phenomenon that happens where people sabotage their own performance. For example, the night before the SAT, obviously you wouldn't want to go and get crazy drunk so you'd be like hung over and dehydrated on the day of this five hour exam, right? Like who would do that Well, I had a friend who did, and I remember thinking, why would they do that? The reason, I think is that now that friend gets to say, o, I totally bomb the SAT, but obviously I was like huing over. The thing you're protecting is your ego. because what Ed Jones said is that you are now creating some external villain. You're not stupid. You could have gotten a good SAT score But you know, you were hungover. Interesting. Let me ask you about an imaginary scenario. Let's say I am a boss. Let's say I'm even me, okay? I'm imagining that you are you. Okaykay. I'm following. I know that's tough, but I think you can pull it off. I'll try. So let's say I've got someone working on our team and this person does G work. great work and let's say I try to encourage them to aim higher to be more creative, to stretch beyond the standard path But that when I do so, they take those suggestions or encouragements not as, oh, great, that's exciting. I can get better, I can try new things They take them as criticisms, which they are. It's supposed to be productive. But then what happens is you see the confidence just falls and this person will get tentative, more careful, and that doesn't produce the best work. So if you want that person to succeed It would seem to require more confidence, but it seems that confidence comes from ublishment So that's where I get back to the catch twenty two. It's like, wait a second, I want them to do better as soon as they start doing better, then they'll have more confidence. But how do I get the whole engine going? Right. So what Albandura did in some of his early experiments was what he called guided mastery. As I mentioned, he was a clinical psychologist. and one of the kinds of patients that he was trying to help were patients with severe phobias. So extreme fears of ight of airplanes, of snakes, that kind of thing. And the discovery was that you basically say, look, one day, I would like you to not be afraid of snakes, completely unafraid of snakes.ike you'd put a snake around your neck at a zoo demonstration. Yuck. Yeah, I know. I'm never the person to volunteer for that. I'm very afraid of snakes. Oh, are you really realies? so afraid of snakes Iid't know that. Okay, well, Stehven, you be yourself and I'll be Albandura, canan you imagine that? Do you have a mustache or no, I'm just trying to draw the picture. I don't think so. He never had a mustache, actually. Okay, clean shaven Albandura So you say, I'm definitely afraid of stakakes, but that's okay. I' just going to avoid them for the rest of my life. And I say, no, no, no, it's going to be much better for you if you can actually overcome this Far We have to overcome these irrational things that stand in our way. So what I do with you is guided mastery. I don't say, okay, great, I'm going to put a bow constrict well. I definitely put a bow const. Sorry. Thank you, doctor Bandera. That was very kind of you not to kill me. The experximent would be very brief. No wonder you have a hard time finding research subjects for your experiments So you would break things down to like twenty seven steps. You'd be like first, I want to just write the word snake on a piece of paper. Can we do that and And you' be like, no, I don't want to look at the wor snake. open, I'm going to sit next to you and we're going do it together. The important part about guuided mastery is that you have a role model who actually scaffolds you, they give you the support and also they show you what you can do, but you can't yet do it yourself And the reason why this is so profound is this is also how children learn. Children in many cases, can't yet do something and the parent does it with them. And in these tiny ways, they begin to do things that they couldn't do on their own. The parent doesn't totally do it for them, but it's this intermediate step that guided mastery, like, let me tie your shoes with you. You break down something like being able to handle snakes into tiny little steps And then with the role model who's capable and skilled, you travel along this journey of mastery. That is how Albandura would say, you start the cycle of confidence and success But I want to go back to this criticism that you gave this junior person on your team. Please. So guuide and mastery is that you have this cycle of small wins. You know, I don't think I can do it. Oh, my mentor thinks I can. And then you surprise yourself and you do it, and it's all positive. I think what's interesting is that there is a point at which your confidence is high enough that you can actually take critical feedback, which by the way, is very efficient Right? Like let's take you and me. And When you tell me things that I could do better, we have achieved a certain level of trust and confidence that we can very efficiently take this criticism for what it is, which is in a way a sign of how much faith we do have in each other because we're not holding back. It reminds me of this study by David Jager and Jeff Cohen and his colleagues called the Wise Feedback study In the study, there are these middle school students and they get feedback on their essays. Do you remember getting your essays graded by your English teacher? and they'd be like a Ca of red like this sounds is too long, this is a run on, The experiment was half the kids got these post it notes stuck on their papers that said, I'm giving you this feedback because I have high expectations and I know you can achieve them And I think what happens eventually is that you have a trusting enough relationship to L this critical feedback as a sign of confidence. Like you must think that I can achieve your high expectations, otherwise you wouldn't have wasted your time. So this is about developing confidence with the help of someone. Maybe it's a senior person, mayaybe it's a mentor, maybe it's teacher, maybe it's a boss What about just on your own, I guess self affirmation. Like when I think of self affirmation, I think of Primarily Mos' name. Was it Stuart Varney? I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and dog guna. People like me. Is that how I should be building up my confidence in myself? I know it's easy to parody. But I actually know people who do some form of this, like students who tell me they actually have a Google dooc of things that people have said to them that are positive and they literally reread it just to remind themselves in a moment of doubt. I thinkre reminding ourselves of things that were wins. You know, there's this research on what's called the values affirmation This is when you say one of my core values is, and then you pick from a modable choice, usually like honesty, my friendships, et cetera. And then you write about it for about ten minutes, like I believe in honesty. and then you write about you are an honest person, why that's important to you. This actually has enormously positive effects on your motivation to do hard things, your happiness and so forth. So I do think there's a little bit of DIY, you start the cycle by focusing on the positive I think this is a bit disputed or maybe entirely disputed, but what about the notion of power posing? I stand and look strong and confident and smart And therefore I am a little bit more all those things. What's the science say on that? This is the work of Amy Cuty, a psychologist who at the time was in Harvard Business School. And I know Amy, by the way, and she's a wonderful person. Here's the drama though. The finding that she published with co authors, by the way, was a laboratory study where adults were randomly assigned to take different postures. For example, one of the power poses, it's basically standing like Wonder Woman or putting your hands over your head like you just won an Olympic gold medal. And then there was a contractive pose, know, you've got your hands across your chest and that's kind of the opposite. So one is the victory pose and the other one is the vanquished pose. Here is what she gives us TEed talkalk on this finding, which is that in the original research, when you stand up like Wonder Woman, you actually have not only more confidence, but also might take more risks and have higher levels of testosterone. suuper sexy finding. But then other scientists were like, really I don't believe it. And they actually tried to replicate this research and they interrogated the data. They said, this is not true. If you collect bigger samples. If you look at this in a more rigorous way, you do not have an effect of power posing on your hormones and your behavior and your confidence. The latest in this is that there was a meta analysis just last year where scientists said, we have now gathered all of the data on how these different poses influence our feelings, our behavior hormones And we've looked carefully not only at power posing versus this kind of submissive contractive posing, but also what's in between, which is neutral And the finding of this met analysis is that there is maybe an effect of posing on our feelings, but it's not power posing versus neutral. It's neutral versus this submissive contractive pose. So maybe there is a there there, but it's not the same there that we thought it was in the beginning I'm sure there'll be another chapter. Let me ask you one last question related to this, and it may be a very obvious question, but to me, it's worth asking, what does self confidence necessarily accomplish? In other words Maybe it just feels good But it doesn't lead to greater accomplishment. Do we know if it does Literally right now, I mean, not literally right now, but these days, I am in correspondence with a psychologist I greatly admire but disagree with on this point of confidence. His name is Don Moore and he's a very accomplished scientist at Berkeley. And Don Moore and I and also our common friend Katie Nilkman We're all in this three way correspondence on what the effect of confidence is on motivation and performance. And I think that confidence absolutely does influence your motivation and performance in the way that Albandor described, that more confidence gets you to try harder at things. that trying harder leads you to perform better and that it can create this virtuous cycle Don says to me and to Katie, hey, I have run a lot of laboratory experiments where I give people feedback on some pret test. And if the feedback is positive, they should have higher confidence and then that higher confidence should pay off in greater motivation in a subsequent task and I'm not finding it. But I think in a lot of things that are outside the lab, like real life, a twenty minute session where you're playing this arbitrary computer game, but actually like you're trying out for the soccer team. You're wondering if you should major in math. you're wondering whether you should keep your restaurant open or not. I think in real life, over longer time frrames when the stakes are real and in many cases, your ego' involved, I think absolutely, your confidence matters and Al Bandura was right. Maybe there are circumstances in the lab where in that little arbitrary experimental task you were like, oh, okay, great. If I did that well, I'm going take my foot off the pedal a little bit in the next thing. So that's my interpretation. but it is an indication that not all scientists agree about the benefits of confetidence I have a quotation that I want to read you about confidence. and I'm wondering if you can tell me who it is, Wh said it? H. All right ere's a quote I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence, but it comes from within. It is there all the time Who do you think said that Oh my gosh. Like Everyone said that. D't you think that said by like Taylor Swift, Adeell. You have the correct gender? Okay, good. I've eliminated half of the human race. I'm doing well. female and scientist? Yes It wasn't Anna Freud, right It was Annareud. Look at you knowing stuff Can you read me the quote one more time? I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence, but it comes from within. It is there all the time And I don't think when she says it comes from within, she was thinking about posing like Wonder Woman I will say this, I think confidence is a great thing. and if we can figure out how to kickstart that cycle, whether it's reading quotes from Anna Freud or writing affirmations down on little slips of paper, it doesn't do any harm and I think it might do a little bit of good Coming up after the break, a fact check of today's conversation