December 3, 2025 • 49 mins
It’s the season of giving—and yesterday was Giving Tuesday, a time based on the global generosity movement that encourages people to do good and help others.
In honor of Giving Tuesday, Dr. Laurie Santos, host of another Pushkin podcast, The Happiness Lab, teamed up with the non-profit Give Directly to help raise donations for people experiencing extreme poverty.
As part of her work with Give Directly, she’s made a special episode of The Happiness Lab talking with other podcast hosts about their own experiences with giving. Times when they’ve given something meaningful to someone, or have been given something that has deeply impacted them. I sat down with Dr. Santos to share my own experience of receiving a gift I didn’t even realize I needed. One that came into my life at the perfect time.
In the spirit of giving, you can join Pushkin and Give Directly in making a real difference for those in need. Go to givedirectly.org/pushkin to learn more and give what you can.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hey everyone, Jr. Here it's the season of giving, and
yesterday was Giving Tuesday, a time based on the global
generosity movement that encourages people to do good and help others.
So in honor of Giving Tuesday, doctor Lorie Santos, host
of another Pushkin podcast, The Happiness Lab, teamed up with
(00:39):
the nonprofit Give Directly to help raise donations for people
experiencing extreme poverty. As part of her work with Gift Directly,
she's made a special episode of The Happiness Lab talking
with other podcasts hosts about their own experiences with giving,
times when they've given something meaningful to someone or have
been given something that has deeply impacted them. I sat
(01:03):
down with Lord to share my own experience of receiving
a gift. I didn't even realize I needed one that
came into my life at the perfect time. I hope
you enjoy it and that it makes you think about
how you show up for others and why it's so
important to do so. And in the spirit of giving,
you can join Pushkin and give Directly and making a
(01:24):
real difference for those in need. This year, Give Directly
is working to lift three entire villages in Rwanda out
of extreme poverty. They're aiming to raise a million dollars
by the end of the year, and every dollar counts.
Your donation will be delivered as straight cash into the
hands of families in these villages who know best what
(01:46):
they need. The donations can help families in Rwanda invest
in their futures by starting a business, buying livestock to
fertilize their farm, or paying school fees. So head to
give directly dot org slash pushkin to give what you
can and if you're a first time donor, giving Multiplier
will match your donation. So visit give directly dot org,
(02:09):
slash pushkin to help fight poverty. Thank you for your support. Okay,
enjoy the episode.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Hello, and welcome to a special edition of the Happiness
Lab podcast. I hope all my listeners who celebrate had
a happy Thanksgiving.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
But the day I really.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Look forward to each November is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.
Forget Black Friday and Cyber Monday, my holiday of choice
is Giving Tuesday.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Giving Tuesday is the.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Global holiday of charitable giving that falls right in the
midst of our shopping frenzy.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
A day that's not about commerce but compassion.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Here at the Happiness Lab, we tend to make a
big deal out of Giving Tuesday. Every year we share
a special episode that explores why doing good for others
is super good for our own happiness. We also like
to give our listeners a chance to team up and
donate to a charitable cause that really does good in
the world. For the past few years, that charity has
been given directly nonprofit that takes your cash and gives
(03:11):
it directly to people in extreme poverty to spend as
they see fit. But this year we are going even bigger.
We're bringing together the fans of some of my favorite
podcasts to raise even more money to fight poverty. Think
ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris, On Purpose with Jayshetty,
Revisionist History, Hidden Brain, How to Be a Better Human,
(03:31):
and dozens more. The campaign even has its own hashtag,
Pods Fight Poverty. Pods Fight Poverty is trying to raise
a million dollars this year, enough money to lift several
villages in Rwanda out of extreme poverty. If you want
to help, had to give directly dot org slash Happiness
Lab to donate what you can that's GiveDirectly dot org
slash Happiness Lab.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
If you're a fan of this show, you've.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Probably already heard about the great things GiB Directly can
do with a small donation from a listener like you.
Take the great work we did earlier this year, in
collaboration with author and YouTube star John Green, John and
I asked you to partner up with Gibdirectly to tackle
the deadly disease tuberculosis.
Speaker 5 (04:10):
Tuberculosis is an airborne disease that usually affects the lungs.
If left untreated, tuberculosis usually does result in death. Fortunately,
since the nineteen fifties, we've had a cure for tuberculosis.
It's a bacterial infection, so the curious antibiotics given every
day over four to six months.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
The problem is that many people with tb live in
parts of the world where they can't afford these life
saving drugs, So John and I asked our listeners to
help out. With lots of small donations of five or
ten bucks. We raised over one hundred thousand dollars to
fight this disease. That's incredible, right, But what's even more
incredible are the stories we heard about what this money
(04:47):
did for people living with the disease. Take one recipient, Margaret,
a thirty year old TB patient living in Malawi. Margaret's
TB could have easily been cured with a simple antibiotic,
but lacking the resources to get treatment, she eventually got.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Sicker and sicker.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
That is until she received the cash donation we provided
through gift Directly. With that small amount of money, she
was able to pay for the bicycle taxi she needed
to travel to a far off clinic where she was
able to finally start her drug treatment. I was overjoyed
when I received the cash transfer, Margaret wrote in her
thank you letter to our listeners. It felt like my
(05:23):
life had been given a second chance. I have hope again.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Months later, I still think.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Back to Margaret's story whenever I'm having a crappy day,
taking a moment to remember what the five or ten
bucks we collectively shared did not just for Margaret, but
for hundreds of other people who are struggling. That feels amazing,
Probably more amazing than any material gift I'll be getting
this holiday season. That good feeling is what the rest
of this episode is about. With the help of some
(05:50):
amazing fellow podcasters, I'm going to explore the enormous psychological
power of giving and receiving. We'll see how small acts
of kindness, a spare bit of cash, or a tiny
gesture of care can create huge ripples in a person's life.
I want these stories to serve as a reminder for
something our lying minds often forget that a great way
to treat ourselves is to do a small bit of
(06:12):
good for somebody else. To kick off these stories of
how doing good can make us feel good, let's look
at how receiving an act of kindness can change us.
And we'll do that with my first esteemed podcast host guest. Hi.
Speaker 6 (06:25):
My name's Tim Harford and I am the host of
Cautionary Tales.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Tim is a respected journalist and economist, but his story
of being the recipient of kindness goes back to a
time before he found fame working for the BBC or
hosting Cautionary Tales.
Speaker 6 (06:40):
This story took place nearly a quarter of a century ago.
I was visiting a friend in Cameroon, which is in
West Africa, very poor.
Speaker 7 (06:52):
Part of the world.
Speaker 6 (06:53):
I was in my mid twenties and I was on
edge because Cameron was at the time rated as one
of the most corrupt countries in the world, and corrupt
or not. People there were often really desperate. As a tourist,
you feel like you're a target, and so I was
always on the lookout. I had just had this sort
of suspicion. I went around my travels around Cameroon. I
(07:16):
had a great time, was treated wonderfully by everybody I met,
but I never lost that feeling of you need to
be careful. Then one day I was standing by the
roadside in a smallish town called the Menda with a
couple of Western friends, and I think we were waiting
for a bus, just bought some egg and chips. We're
(07:37):
having a good time, and we've just walked across country
several miles on this dust road. And as we're waiting,
a couple of guys zoom up behind us on a motorbike.
Two guys on one motorbike. I turn around, expecting some threat,
and they stopped right in front of me and one
(07:57):
of them just hands me something and I looked down
at it is this, and it's a passport. In fact,
it's my passport. I mean, I'm completely and why is
this guy giving me my own passport? And of course
I realized what's happened is the passport was in my
back pocket and I've sat down by the roadside miles
(08:19):
back and the passport must have fallen out, and these
guys have driven along this road on the motorbike. They've
spotted a British passport and they've gone all the way
down the road looking for the first guy they see
who looks British, which is me. Have they even got
my photo with my passport, And the amazing thing was
they handed it over and then they just drove off.
(08:40):
They weren't They didn't sort of stand around waiting for
a tip or reward or even really a thank so
it was just you know, there you go. I thought
you might need this, and off they went. And I
realized that this suspicion which with which I've been viewing everybody,
had been so much the opposite of how these guys
had actually behaved. I mean, I would have been even
(09:02):
more grateful if I had had a moment to realize
they even had a problem, because if I had been
stuck in Cameroon without my passport, that's a big problem
that's going to cause me a lot of headaches. But
they had solved the problem. Before I even realized they'd
solved the problem. They had completely defied my rather uncharitable
(09:22):
expectations of the people of Cameroon, and they're driven off
into the sunset without even waiting for a thank you.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
It also seems like they did a lot of work,
Like it sounds like they were like chasing you as
you're walking around all through the day to try to
find you too.
Speaker 6 (09:35):
Probably they came a couple of miles on the motorbike.
I mean it was probably ten or fifteen minutes. Maybe
I don't know at all really how much work they did,
But all I know is that they did it. And
they could easily have taken that passport and thought, well,
maybe we can turn this into cash somehow, or even
(09:56):
just maybe we can try and get a tip out
of this guy, or I.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Just left it on the ground, like, oh, well, you know,
I don't know this guy.
Speaker 6 (10:03):
Yeah, yeah, there's someone else's problem. Yeah, just ignored it.
But they didn't.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
I mean, I love that story, but it also points
out how like so many of our societies are probably
much more high trust societies than we assume, Like so
many people are out there doing better things than we think.
But I think we have minds that assume people are
kind of mistrusting. I actually, unfortunately, Tim, I actually blame
the economists on this a little bit because I feel like,
at least, all.
Speaker 6 (10:25):
Fine, yeah, sure, we kick the economists.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
I mean, at least the standard economists have been telling
us for a long time that, you know, we are
homo economicus. We are these selfish beings who are going
to go out.
Speaker 6 (10:34):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
So maybe the folks who returned your passport would do
it if they thought they could get, you know, some
cash off you, or they you know, maybe they get
some huge reputational benefit. Someone saw them do it and
that you know, now they kind of like praising them
and so on.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
But they wouldn't just do it just for the good
of doing it.
Speaker 6 (10:49):
Well, I mean, let me push back a little bit.
Let me push back a little bit and defend my
fellow economists. So the classic economic model, all it says
is that people have consistent preferences, and it's kind of
convenient to assume that those preferences are about consumption. Like
you're trying to spend as little money as possible and
get as much stuff as possible. All that money it
(11:09):
doesn't have to be you could, and I've seen I've
seen some beautiful economic models written where actually, my pleasure
is completely dependent on your pleasure, Laurie like the happier.
I can just see the glow in your eyes. I
know how happy you are, and the happier you are,
the happier that makes me. There's nothing in conventional economics
that makes that impossible. We tend not to make that
(11:31):
assumption because it's kind of why would you, And so
we simplify and we talk about the purchase of goods
and services and we ignore the altruistic bit. There's nothing
in classical economics that says people can't be altruistic. We,
I think, just haven't paid enough attention to that possibility.
And because we don't pay attention to the possibility, we
just set it to one side.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Are you surprised that we don't think of kind actions
as as valuable, as impactful as they often are.
Speaker 6 (11:56):
If I can just be a kind of amateur evolutionary
psychologist for a moment, I suppose you might naturally think
that we had evolved to be a little bit more
suspicious of people, particularly of strangers, because you know, it's
bad to have someone take advantage of you. But actually,
of course we evolved to be to be social beings,
and maybe we shouldn't be so surprised that people often
(12:18):
behave kindly to each other. I mean, I am aware
of some research in psychology. You'll know this kind of
work better than me, Laurie. But we often fail to generalize,
like we think, oh, if I found a wallet with
like a driving license in it, then you know i'd
contact the owner or I'd handed into the police station. Yeah,
(12:38):
of course that's what I'd do. But then you ask people,
You ask if other people would do that, and we think, oh, no,
other people would wouldn't do that. And it's not like
we think we're better than other people. It's just that
the two questions don't even overlap. It's almost as that
we've got a different circuit in our brain reflecting on
how we would behave or reflecting on how we think
(12:59):
somebody else will behave.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
And this is a challenge for the organization that we've
been working with give directly. Their philosophy is like we're
just going to give people money directly and let them
do with it what they want. That people in need
have the best ideas about how to spend their money
to make their situation better. But a lot of the
folks who are thinking about giving to give directly often
have the following problem, which is like, are people really
going to know what to do with the money? Are
(13:22):
they going to do something bad? Are they going to
buy something frivolous or something like that. It seems like
people just don't trust people to make the best decisions,
And I feel like this is part of the same
kind of bias we have as undercover economists. How do
you think of this bias and where what are we
doing wrong?
Speaker 6 (13:37):
Give the economists some credit. We definitely trust people to
make decisions in their own interests. There are cases where
you might go, look, the money is only useful if
it's coordinated, So actually, what this village really needs is
a bridge or a well. But in general, people are
going to be good stewards of their own money, and
they're going to be good judges of how to spend
(13:59):
that money because there's so much they know about their situation,
about the context, and about their own ambitions that nobody
else can know. And if you give them money, then
you're putting them in the best possible position to take
advantage of their own context and to fulfill their own ambitions.
We're sort of trained to believe that if somebody really
(14:22):
needs a handout, that must be because they lack judgment,
that they have made many poor decisions in the past,
otherwise they wouldn't need a handout. But in somewhere like Cameroon,
it's definitely not true. There are lots and lots of
people in really difficult situations in many countries in the world,
and absolutely not because of any bad decisions that they
(14:45):
themselves have made. So I think we need to shake
off this idea that if someone needs if someone needs
a handout, then by definition they can't be trusted with
the handout. We've kind We've got to break out of
that because that's just nonsense.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
So even an economist says that giving is good for us.
If you want to put that advice into effect right away,
then consider giving to the Pods Fight Poverty campaign. Just
go to GiveDirectly dot org slash happiness. The next podcaster
to share a story on the power of giving is
an old friend of the show.
Speaker 7 (15:15):
First of all, it's great to see you again. A
minute and hes yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Army Veteran j R.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Martinez was badly wounded in Iraq when the humphy he
was driving hit a roadside bomb. Forced to end his
military service, Jr. Entered a dark chapter, but he eventually
fought back, building a series of new careers, first as
a TV actor, then as a Dancing with the Stars champion,
and finally as the host of the inspiring podcast Medal
(15:41):
of Honor.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
Jr. Is a big fan of giving back.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
He's done an incredible amount of service for the veteran community,
but today he asked to share a story not of giving,
but of receiving, specifically of receiving a life changing gift
that he didn't even know he needed.
Speaker 8 (15:57):
In two thousand and nine, I was asked to do
the auction for a veteran's golf outing and it was
going to benefit a nonprofit set up to help, you know,
service members and their fans amilies. And immediately I was like,
of course, now I'm not an auctioneer, but I'm sure
I'll get up there and you know, try to do
my best.
Speaker 7 (16:15):
And I was like, well, what are some of the
auction items?
Speaker 8 (16:18):
And they said this, this, this, this, and a puppy
And so they bring out the puppy he's eight weeks old,
black lab and I hold him and I feel this
like connection. I'm financially going through my budget as a
you know, twenty seven year old. I like, how much
(16:39):
could I bid on this puppy? The max was like
I could probably do like six hundred bucks, like that's
the absolute max. So we get there and immediately like
that number has surpassed, like it we're not a sex hundred.
Speaker 7 (16:51):
That number has moved on.
Speaker 8 (16:52):
And so I'm holding the next auction item, this quilt,
and I'm ready to move it along. And a lady
raises her hand that bidden on the dog and says,
may I say something? So we're like, of course, So
she comes up to the stage. She says, we love animals,
we love dogs, we love this dog, we love this cause.
But unfortunately we have you know, pets at home, so
(17:15):
there's no room for this sweet dog at our house.
Speaker 7 (17:18):
And she says, so we want to give them, give
him to j R.
Speaker 8 (17:22):
And I'm like that quill, like I'm just like now
using it to like wipe all the tears and the
snot and everything.
Speaker 7 (17:29):
And I'm in shock.
Speaker 8 (17:31):
I was still going through my stages of you know,
like I was mad and I was navigating a lot
of emotional things and they give him to me and
I take him home and Laurie, I mean, he helped
me heal and he was my he was my companion
in all these stages of life that I navigated, and
(17:52):
I'm just forever like grateful And every time I would
see the couple that that that did that gesture for me,
I mean, as you can imagine, I always felt forever
indebted to them because of you know, what they gave
to me and the gift they gave to me. And
when he passed, it was one of the hardest things
that I've experienced in my life.
Speaker 7 (18:12):
What was his name, Romeo?
Speaker 8 (18:14):
And I remember like I named him Warrior because I
was like, well, it's for wounded warriors. You know, this
is the you know the mid twenties kid, you know,
guy naming the dog.
Speaker 7 (18:26):
And I was like, Warrior, Yeah, you're a warrior. Then
I was like, what am I going to call you for? Short?
War And I was like, well, I I don't know.
Speaker 8 (18:32):
I started noticing this pattern where people would see him
and they would just like gravitate to him, and I
was like, ah, You're no warrior, You're a Romeo, and
every time I would look at him, no matter what
stage of life that I was in, his look just
always reminded me to just be just to be present,
just to be with him, just to be with the environment.
(18:55):
Can't tell you how many times I would take him
to the park and we would just sit at the park,
just he and I.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
It also seemed like you didn't realize at that moment
that you really needed this kind gift, but then when
it came in your life, it really changed it.
Speaker 8 (19:07):
I had no clue. I had absolutely no clue that
this is what I needed. As much as I was
sitting here budgeting, like how much can I realistically afford
to bid on this dog? I was then thinking about
my life is busy, I can't have a dog right now,
Like who's going to watch the dog for me when
I'm when I have to travel.
Speaker 7 (19:24):
There were all these reasons.
Speaker 8 (19:25):
Why I also couldn't have one, And then the universe said,
this is what you need and gave it to me.
Speaker 7 (19:31):
And guess what I figured it out.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
I mean, I don't know how much folks ended up
spending on Romeo, it is clearly more than your six
hundred bucks that you're going to spend, you know, But
my guess is, whatever they spent, it actually wasn't as
much as you wound up getting out of Romeo. Like
the act of doing something nice for somebody has these
like incredible returns, like this huge return on investment that
we just don't often realize.
Speaker 7 (19:51):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 8 (19:52):
If Romeo was here today and someone offered five hundred
times more than what they spent, when I take it,
absolutely not, absolutely not. There is no price that I
can put on that gesture of what they did for me.
That's the place we got to operate from. Do give,
even if we never necessarily get to understand the full
(20:14):
impact that it had.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
And if you want to follow Jr's advice to do
and to give, then here's the url where you can
donate to the Pods Fight Poverty campaign. It's GiveDirectly dot
org slash Happiness Lab. It's time for a quick break,
but we'll return with the story of a world famous
author who carries cash for strangers in need and a
scientist who's seen the first hand benefits of an unexpectedly
(20:37):
kind word. The Happiness Lab special episode on the power
of giving will return in a moment. Welcome back to
the Happiness Lab special Giving Tuesday episode. In the spirit
of my favorite charitable holiday, I'm chatting with my favorite
podcasters about their personal stories of generosity.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Our goal is.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
To remind you that one of the quickest ways to
feel happier yourself is to give a little happiness back
to somebody else. Next up, we have Michael Lewis, best
selling author of Moneyball and The blind Side, and host
of the award winning podcast Against the Rules. Michael wanted
to share a new strategy he's been using to make
it as easy as possible for him to do good
(21:19):
for people in need.
Speaker 9 (21:20):
I made a decision to always carry a bunch of
ten dollars bills with me so that if I see
anybody who asked me for money, I just automatically give
them ten dollars, people on the streets.
Speaker 7 (21:32):
So I've started doing.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
It, and so how does it feel?
Speaker 9 (21:34):
So it is completely true that when you give something
to someone else you feel good.
Speaker 6 (21:41):
Totally feels good.
Speaker 9 (21:42):
But years ago, when I was working on the blind Side,
the Christian family, the dad and the family said to
me something in passing about giving that I've never been
able to get out of my head. When I hit
a little bump in my mind about giving, it's a
touchdown for me. And it's if it doesn't hurt a
little bit, you haven't given enough. I thought that was
(22:02):
a cool idea, and so you know, it's not a
natural act just to hand money over people.
Speaker 7 (22:08):
It hurts the tiny bit.
Speaker 9 (22:10):
So that also is a reassuring feeling.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
I bet each of those ten dollars bills that you
gave away, the benefit that came to you was way
more than ten bucks that you would have blown on
like two lattis or something silly.
Speaker 9 (22:21):
So this has only been gone on for a couple months,
so this only happened like five times. But I'm gonna
try to make this a habit forever, just because I
think it will change my relationship to just people on
the streets. Yeah, I don't mean people who are homeless.
I've just been like everybody around you, because especially like
if you're in a city, you kind of go through
the world waiting for someone to ask you for something,
(22:42):
and you have all those defenses up, and so those
defenses don't just operate against the people who are asking
you for money, they operate against everything. They're the enemy
of moving through the world in a good way, in
an open way, So it opens up things a little bit.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Yeah, I love this advice because it's so nicely tied
to the type of thing that we're doing. Would give directly, right,
Like their whole deal is that they just give these
cash transfers, no questions asked, And the act of doing
that means you're not kind of thinking in ways where
you're being mistrustful and kind of like analyzing people. Like
first of all, it's just like too much cognitive load
of like, well, what is this money going to go to?
Speaker 4 (23:19):
Is it going to go to something good or whatever?
Speaker 3 (23:21):
But more than the cognitive load, you just wind up
thinking all these bad theories about your fellow humans, right,
like they're going to spend this on something terrible, They're
going to use drugs or something like that. So just
committing like no, I'm just going to give them money.
I'm going to trust that other people have good intentions
of what they're going to do with it. First of all,
you get the benefit that you get from giving, but
also beyond that, you don't have all this like yucky
mistrust that comes with like wondering what someone who's going
(23:43):
to do with the money. It's just like is a
wonderful like cognitive load reducer and like negative social contagion reducer.
Speaker 9 (23:50):
Correct, all correct, So we'll see if I persist in this.
But this has been a little giving wrinkle in my life.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
I hope Michael's tiny wrinkle grows into a big ridge,
a subtle shift that turns into real positive change for
Michael and for anyone feeling a little inspired by his
new giving tactic. And if you're feeling newly inspired to
make a difference, you're a luck because you can take
part in our Pods Fight Poverty campaign right now. Just
had to give directly dot org slash Happiness Lab to
(24:19):
give what you can. Next up is a story of
kindness from one of my former Yale students, a fellow
psychologist who was also the host of an award winning podcast,
Plus is one of my dear friends.
Speaker 10 (24:31):
Hey, I'm doctor Mayah Schunker and I'm the host of
a slight change of Plans And.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
So Maya, what's your story of unexpected benefits of kindness?
Speaker 10 (24:41):
My moment is actually one from elementary school.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
So we're going way back for this one.
Speaker 10 (24:46):
Yeah, we're going all the way back. I was bullied
a lot as a kid.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
And wait, really, I'm surprised by this. Somehow I didn't
know this about you.
Speaker 10 (24:54):
Oh my gosh, oh my god, so many tears, so
much anxiety.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
Wait, who was your worst bully? Mine was? I won't
say her name, I'll say it was Jessica t She
was terrible.
Speaker 10 (25:04):
Jacqueline Callen Lindsay, it was a trio and Carly too.
But these we girls in my neighborhood that weren't super
nice to me, and it was really hard. At the time,
I just thought, oh, I'm a deeply flawed, broken person.
With some hindsight, I realized, oh, how interesting. I was
one of very very few kids of color in my
whole school. I wonder if maybe that played a role.
(25:26):
But regardless of what contributed to the meanness and the cruelty,
I spent my childhood feeling just really insecure and really
really anxious. And these bullies gave credence to my worst
fears about myself.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
Was this like in the school yard, on the bus,
like where did this happen?
Speaker 10 (25:43):
Oh my god, cafeteria so Carly one day was like,
you're so ugly. It's painful for me. To look at you,
and then got up and went to another table. There
was another episode in elementary school where the kids had
decided in advance that they were going to pretend I
was invisible that day. So when I went to go
drink from my milk cart and I lifted up, they
were like, oh, there's a milk carton floating in the air.
(26:04):
How funny. And now there's a fork in the air, Like,
oh my god. I'm likeif there were, I I literally
don't exist.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
I want to like jump through the zoom and hug you.
But wait, how is this a story about kindness? I
just don't see where this is.
Speaker 10 (26:15):
Okay, Sorry, Sorry. So I was bullied a lot, and
there were a few kids that were so deeply kind
to me and weren't just nice behind the scenes, but
were advocates for me when it really mattered. So I
remember there was this one girl in my neighborhood named Adrian,
and we were on the school bus. The school bus
(26:37):
was brutal because like a lot of the kids didn't
want to sit next to me, So it was a
whole thing. It's like, we'd rather sit five in a
seat rather than sit next to Maya. You know kids
are terrible, right, So I remember some kids were saying
some nasty things to me and adrian stood up and
was like, all of you guys, just shut up.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
Maya is awesome.
Speaker 10 (26:56):
I just remember those words in little kid Maya's brain
were transformative, like I had to transcendent experience in that moment,
and I just remember being so mood move by the
fact that she was willing to stand up and say
these things in front of the people that I was
really scared by because I'm not exactly the type of
person who would have fought back in those moments and
(27:19):
like really stood my ground. Instead, I thought, oh, I know,
let me try to kill them with kindness. Maybe that
will win over the bully. And that is clearly a
very losing strategy when it comes to engaging with bullies effectively.
So Adriane did this for me, and it really helped
change the landscape for me. It's not like the bullies
were suddenly nice, but I now felt like Adrianne was
(27:39):
in my corner, and it changes your whole mentality when
you feel like even one person is on your team.
And I was fast forwarding decades to think about how
this had affected me as a person, and actually, Laurie,
it was a moment from my time at Yale when
I was your undergrad student. There was a guy in
(28:00):
my dorm room who was being bullied because he was
suffering from depression and bipolar disorder, and it didn't fit
with the kind of frat boy, machismo athlete vibe. I
guess that his social group entertained and they were so
cruel to him. They were so mean, and I remember
(28:22):
being like, I'm going to be Adrian for him, for Noah,
and I stood up to those guys and I was like,
you guys suck, and Noah's amazing, and how dare you
be so ignorant about mental illness and those struggles. I
even remember at our reunion, I gave this guy so much.
I don't know what a kosher word I can say
(28:43):
on this podcast is, but it was not a fun exchange,
I'll say, for this other guy, because I was like,
how could you treat Noah like that? And I actually
just got a text message from Noah a couple months
ago saying, I remember in college when I was going
through such a hard time, Maya, you were so on
my side and you were so nice to me, and
it really touched my heart that I could pay it
(29:04):
forward like that because I remember having been on the
receiving end of that. See I told you Lauria had
a happy ending.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Okay, that was good. I'm glad that at the ending
came up. It wasn't just like mya getting tortured on
the bus.
Speaker 11 (29:14):
No.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
But I love this story because it shows like Adrian's
probably not sitting there thinking about like how she helpedes
one person in elementary school, but you right now are
thinking about how that helped you to this day and
a decade after that, it was also helping somebody else,
like in college. And so we forget not just like
how long our kind events wind up helping the people
(29:34):
that we do nice things for, but also like how
many times these turn into like these cascades where like
more nice things happen over time.
Speaker 10 (29:42):
Absolutely, they had these beautiful spillover effects, right. And there's
this concept in psychology called moral elevation, and it's basically
when you witness someone else's extraordinary actions.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
So it could be their kindness, or their courage.
Speaker 10 (29:56):
Or their self sacrifice, or their ability to forgive other
people any character trait that you find really amazing and impressive.
That can lead to this warm, fuzzy feeling in your
chest that makes you feel like, wow, humans are capable
of extraordinary thing things. But importantly, when you experience moral elevation,
it doesn't just feel good, It actually changes your brain.
(30:17):
When you see someone challenge your understanding of the world
and about what humans are capable of, it cracks open
your own imagination about what you are capable of. And
I love that insight because what it's done in my
own life is it's made me a more keen observer.
So when I'm walking in the coffee shop, I'll notice
someone being extra nice to the barista, or I'll notice
(30:39):
that someone went out of their way to smile at
me when I'm going on a walk. And these moments
feel so good in the moment, but they also have
these long lasting effects on our psychology and our view
of others, and importantly of ourselves and our potential our
capabilities as people. And so it's really enriched my life
to see the world through a moral beauty lens.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
This is such a great example. I feel like, especially
in winter when everything's feeling so dark and so glum,
that like they're just these examples of beauty and guidness
out there that we can fine and that seeing them
isn't just like witnessing something that's beautiful, it's also changing
us to exactly.
Speaker 10 (31:15):
And yes, winter is dark, but also the world like,
we're in a really dark place right now. It's very
hard to stay hopeful and positive. And I have just
felt like reminding myself that actually humans are so good
at their core, because you can witness these beautiful acts
every single day, and that's in my control, unlike so
much else that's happening in the world. Is a wonderful
(31:36):
way of reclaiming my agency and allowing myself moments of happiness,
moments of joy in everyday life against the backdrop of
a lot of suffering in the world, you know. And
so yeah, I've just been grateful for the gift that
we've gotten from science in the space of moral elevation.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
And if Maya story has given you a moment of
moral elevation, remember that you can choose to become an
Adrian too.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
You can do that by joining me and dozens.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Of other podcasters as part of the Pods Fight Poverty campaign.
Why not donate five bucks right now by heading to
give Directly dot org slash happiness Lablet's GiveDirectly dot org
slash Happiness Lab. It's time for a break, but when
we return, I'll get to share my own story of
the power of giving and how four words that I
(32:22):
quickly scribbled nearly twenty years ago said a little girl
on the path to becoming an aerospace engineer.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
The Happiness Lab will be right back.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Welcome back to the Happiness Lab special Giving Tuesday episode.
Today we're exploring just how much we underestimate the psychological
power of small acts of generosity. And the next story
is one that really hits home for me because the
person in this story doing all that underestimating of the
power of giving was me.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
So in two thousand and eight, I was six years old.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
This is Avery Miller.
Speaker 12 (33:03):
And I didn't know too much you know about the world,
I suppose, but I knew that I wanted to be
an astronaut because I'd read books about them, I'd seen
them on TV.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
And my parents were very encouraging of all of that.
Speaker 12 (33:15):
And my mom realized there was an event called World
Science Festival.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
The World Science Festival is a multimedia science education organization
that began as an annual event in New York City
to make science fun and accessible to the general public.
Big panels and talks, interactive exhibits, and kid friendly games.
Avery's mom thought her daughter would love it, so the
Millers decided to take the four hour trek from their
home in Boston to New York City.
Speaker 12 (33:41):
So we went to the festival and there's a lot
of really cool outside stuff and you know, the typical
kid activities. But my mom was like, you know, I
think Avery would really love going to some talks, which
an insane thing to think about a six year old,
but that's my mom. So we went to quite a
few talks, but I think they were mostly men, so
(34:02):
not really role models.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
That's when Avery stumbled on a panel that would change
her life forever. It was called Cool Job, where scientists
shared the cool questions they explored and the fun places
they got to work. There was a Disney imagineer, a
forensics expert who used science to solve crimes, and an
early career psychologist whose name you might recognize if you're
a fan of the show.
Speaker 11 (34:24):
She spends a lot of time thinking about how we think,
and how we play, and how we fall in love
by hiking through the jungles of Puerto Rico watching monkeys.
Please awarim welcome for doctor Lori Santos.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
Hello everyone, thanks for having me today. So I'm going
to tell you a little bit about a job that
I bet many of you are thinking about, and that's
the kind of job that's involved with working with animals.
So fun fact, long before I began studying happiness, I
spent a lot of my early career trying to understand
the human mind by studying the cognitive abilities of monkeys.
(35:01):
Back in two thousand and eight, I was asked to
talk about that primate work on the Cool Jobs panel
at the World Science Festival. The organizers of the panel
assumed it would be of interest to college students thinking
about their future careers. But what we didn't expect was
to have so many little kids in the audience, little
kids who were apparently very impressed that there were jobs
where you could hang out with monkeys, Little kids just
(35:23):
like Avery.
Speaker 12 (35:24):
I was like, you get to be outside, you get
to do science, And that was sort of a mind
blowing moment of like, oh my god, there's someone like
me who's doing all this really cool stuff and my
mom again being really cool, was like, well.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Let's go talk to her.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Avery's mom wasn't the only audience member to have that idea,
as The New York Times would later report, quote after
the event, Doctor Santo's was mobbed by a group of
children curious about what she calls monkey magic tricks. I
spent over an hour after that panel sitting on stage
talking with kids about my work, and one of those
kids was an eager little girl named Avery.
Speaker 12 (36:02):
So I went up and I think I told you
all about how I wanted to be an astronaut and
how I wanted to go to MIT, because you knowing
up in Boston, if you want to do science, you
want to go to MIT. And we didn't have anything
for you to sign except for the back of the
ticket on the email my mom printed out, So you
signed it.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
I have it here if you want to see it.
Speaker 4 (36:22):
Oh my gosh, can you hold it up?
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Yeah, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
We like go monkey drawings. Yeah, exit.
Speaker 12 (36:28):
So I drew monkeys on it as you can see,
which I'm sure my mom told me not to. But
you wrote have fun at MIT, Love Laurie, and I
was like, this is the coolest thing ever.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
A scientist thinks I can be a scientist.
Speaker 12 (36:43):
We framed it and then I put it on my desk,
and then I guess I never moved it off my desk.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
I mean, like I look at it all the time.
Speaker 12 (36:52):
In high school, I'd sit there and do my homework,
and so it's like, you know what this means, I
can do it. You know, as much as I hated
chemistry at the time, okay, I got to get the
chemistry done because I'm going to go to MIT.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
So it was just this constant little reminder that like,
I could do that.
Speaker 4 (37:07):
I mean, it's so funny.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
I signed lots of things for lots of folks, and
just the idea that they would keep them is really cool.
Speaker 4 (37:12):
But also just that it turned into an inspiration for you.
Speaker 12 (37:15):
I failed a class, almost failed a class in the
eighth grade and it was science, and I was like.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
That means I can't do it.
Speaker 12 (37:24):
Because if everyone looks at you as the science kid
and you're going around failing science classes.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
It's hard.
Speaker 12 (37:31):
So I looked at it and I was like, you
know what, someone says that I can do it. I
saw someone else do it. You know, there were a
lot of people rooting me on. But I had this
thing from such a young age. One person telling you
you can do it when you didn't even know that
was an option is perhaps more meaningful. So yeah, it
was a big deal to me then it's still a
(37:52):
big deal to me now. I had it on my
desk all through college, all the dorms I lived in.
I have it now that I live on my own.
It's just always lived on my desk. It's always just
been there. I also have a Sally Ride picture, though,
so you're up there with her.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
That's amazing. That sounds like you wound up going to college.
Did you end up going to MIT or what happened?
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 12 (38:12):
So by senior year I realized that I did not
want to go to MIT. Mit is great, but it
wasn't the right fit. I ended up going to Purdue.
I became an aerospace engineer.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Wait, like mind boggling, Like you became an aerospace engineer.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
That's so cool.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
I reconnected with Avery and learned about her story when
she sent me an email out of the blue thanking
me for being such an inspiration to her. She wrote
in her letter, you took the time to speak to me,
learn my name, and just made me feel like no
matter what I could do it. Thank you for being
an inspiration in six year old me's life. I know
that you carved the way for this field to be
(38:49):
one that women like me can thrive in.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
I mean, wow, I had.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
No idea that scribbling those four little words nearly twenty
years ago would have had such an impact on someone's life.
I also didn't realize that those words would ripple into
the next generation of scientists too.
Speaker 12 (39:07):
I think one of the things that I learned and
I really appreciated when I met you when I was
young was that you didn't talk to me like I
was a little kid. I never felt like someone was
talking down to me, which I think in STEM we
have a tendency to do when people don't understand stuff.
I think it was Einstein, though I could be misquoting,
who said if you can't explain it to a five
(39:28):
year old, you don't understand it. There's something to be
said for approaching someone on their level. That's how people
can hold on and be like, wow, I really do
want to learn more. It definitely makes me think about
how I'm giving my time, because, like I mentor middle
schoolers and I'm like, maybe one day one of these
middle schoolers will reach out and you know, same sort
of thing of like, oh, you impacted me, so who knows.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Look at you.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
The six year old has become an adult now, I know.
I mean one of the reasons the story is so
compelling for me also just that like I affected someone
who's so cool and doing such cool stuff now was
just amazing.
Speaker 12 (40:00):
The fact that someone who speaks to John Green thinks
I'm cool.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
It's possibly the coolest thing ever.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
I'm sure he would think you're cool too, But I mean,
it's just like you just have these short interactions in
life where you don't necessarily realize how much you're affecting people.
And I think if you can have those interactions in
a way that are like positive or encouraging, we just
like don't know the ripple effect of the kind of
thing that we can do to other people. And so
it was just such a reminder of like, oh my gosh,
(40:28):
I can have this like incredibly long standing, like you know,
twenty year ish positive effect and I might not be
realizing I could do that right now.
Speaker 12 (40:34):
And also the fact that I can reconnect with you
after twenty years and it still be something meaningful.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
I'm curious, was there a moment that you decided to
reach back out, Like, was there like a catalyst of
why you decided to reach out when you did.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
I'm hoping to go back to school eventually.
Speaker 12 (40:50):
So I've been studying for exams, and sometimes you have
just a day where you're looking at your exam book
and you're like, there is no way that I can
keep doing this. There's no way I can keep answering problems.
And I looked at the note, which again sits on
my desk all the time, so I'm looking at it,
and I'm like, you know, I should really reach out
to her and tell her that this is impactful.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
This really just like blew my mind. And really, just
even this conversation, I feel like my face is going
to hurt from smiling after talking about.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Me as well, which is a great thing.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
Avery's story is a powerful example of how a few
simple words can shape someone's life in unimaginable ways, but
it also shows how absolutely great it feels to be
the person who gives that small act of kindness. And yet,
even when we know these small gestures matter, most of
us still struggle to actually do them. We put off
reaching out, we delay helping, we wait for the right
(41:43):
time to give. Why do we procrastinate on doing the
very thing that will make us and other people feel
so good? To find out? I tagged in our final
podcast host guest, a behavioral scientist who has studied this
exact problem. Katie, do you want to start by introducing yourself?
Speaker 13 (42:00):
I'd be delighted.
Speaker 14 (42:01):
My name is Katie Milkman, and I am a professor
at the Wharton School, host of the podcast Choiceology.
Speaker 13 (42:06):
And author of the book How to Change.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
So, Katie, we've just heard all these amazing things that
happen when people are nice to each other and do
nice things for each other, including with money. We've also
just heard not just what happens to the people who
receive these wonderful things, but also what happens to you,
the donor, in terms of your happiness and how great
you feel. But the problem is that our minds are stupid,
and sometimes we can know all this stuff and still
(42:28):
not put it into practice. This is the kind of
thing that you study, right.
Speaker 13 (42:33):
Yes, although I wouldn't say our minds are stupid.
Speaker 14 (42:35):
I think our minds are incredible, but they're constantly taking shortcuts,
and they're sort of wired for situations that don't always
optimize our current environment in the modern era.
Speaker 13 (42:46):
So, like, the mind is amazing. I don't want to
denigrate the modit.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
Okay, yeah, no, no does to the mind great. You know,
we're walking around really smart primates built the internet all
this stuff, But we sometimes forget the importance of doing
for other people, like when it comes to our social connection.
Speaker 4 (42:59):
I think this is about where we really get it wrong.
Speaker 14 (43:01):
Yeah, no, absolutely, we don't anticipate how good it will
feel to you know, engage in conversations, engage in gift giving,
just be kind to others in a wide variety of ways.
We don't realize how much that will actually generate happiness
for us.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
Our minds are also stupid in that we just like
forget stuff. Like I'm guessing a lot of people right
now are like, oh my gosh, it's a great opportunity
to give directly, but like you actually have to do that,
and like forgetfulness and friction is bad, that's right.
Speaker 13 (43:29):
Yeah, follow through is.
Speaker 14 (43:29):
One of the main barriers to change that I have studied, Like,
we need to remind people, we need to catch them
in a moment when they can take action. And actually
this relates to some research I did a number of
years ago related to giving. So this was a project
led by Amanda Schwan, who's an amazing professor at Michigan State,
and also with my colleague here, Jed Kessler, where we
were able to get data from the University of Pennsylvania's
(43:52):
hospital system on asks they made to pass patients to give. Right, So,
you've had experience with the University of Pennsylvanian hospital system.
You were here in patient for some sort of service
or treatment. You have to stay overnight, right that's kind
of a big deal, or you're checked into the hospital.
So you're probably feeling a lot of gratitude right now,
and you have an opportunity when the university asks would
(44:13):
you give to this hospital system, you have an opportunity
to express that gratitude. The data we got allowed us
to look at whether or not those mailings came right
away or at a time delay, because they send them
in batches every few months. So if the batch send
happens to occur just a couple of weeks after you
leave the hospital, you're going to get it real quickly.
(44:33):
But if it happens a few months later, well, then
it's going to be a long time after your inpatients
day that you're going to be asked would you be
willing to reciprocate and make it a donation. And what
was interesting is that we found a pretty steep decay.
So if we hit you right after you've had this
positive experience, you're much more likely to give your feeling
still that warmth and gratitude and remembering how meaningful it
(44:53):
was to be taken care of. Whereas if a little
time passes the hot state, the sort of warmth and
the reciprocity feelings, those positive feelings that generate the decision
to give, those are what's decaying. And that also presumably
suggests that you're not going to feel as good about
making that reciprocal gesture if your strong feelings have dissipated
(45:16):
and you wait. So one of the things I think
that teaches us about giving is generally when we are
remembering when we're in that hot state, when we realize
how good it will make us feel, like, take action
right away, don't let that moment slip. And I think
more similarly in so many parts of your life, like
when you're feeling gratitude to someone, or when you've had
a really positive experience and you want to make sure
(45:37):
you don't forget to tell someone you know, you were
a great professor, Laurie, and I'm so grateful for this
thing you did, or you know, thank you for mentoring me.
Speaker 13 (45:47):
Whatever it is.
Speaker 14 (45:48):
Express that gratitude immediately, because you're going to forget if
you let the moment pass. And I think, you know,
one of the things I've studied in my research in
other domains is just that our motivation in general waxes
and wanes like over time. Right, we years ago did
an episode together Laurie about some of my work with
Hanschen Dai of UCLA on the fresh start effect, that
there are these moments when we're we're motivated to make
(46:10):
a change in our lives.
Speaker 13 (46:11):
And I think that's just part.
Speaker 14 (46:12):
Of a bigger process, Like we don't walk around the
world with like constant flat states of emotion and motivation.
We're moving all over the place and capitalizing on the
hot state feelings is important to doing the things that
are good for us in the long run, that are
good for our relationships and our happiness.
Speaker 4 (46:27):
Because whenever we do it.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
We're going to feel good doing that right in your
fresh start work where you looking when when do people
start exercising? Whatever, you get the exercise habit going, that's
going to have benefits for you. Whenever you actually get
the gift done. The kind words said, you're going to
experience benefit. But if you wait and the motivation goes away,
then you're never going to wind up getting those benefits.
Speaker 13 (46:46):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (46:47):
So, if someone's listening to this right now and they're thinking,
oh my gosh, I want to give to give directly,
how do they lock it in?
Speaker 4 (46:53):
Do they like, pause the episode and just go do.
Speaker 13 (46:55):
A Poe episode? Do it right now, do not wait.
Speaker 14 (46:57):
That's right, because that feeling will decay faster than you realize.
And so this is the moment to do it. Don't wait,
don't delay. You think you're going to do it tomorrow,
but you won't, So do it right now.
Speaker 4 (47:07):
Okay, we're going to do a pause.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
So hopefully during that little audio break, so folks pause
the episode and actually gave to give directly. But I'm
guessing some folks maybe couldn't do it immediately. Are there
other social science hacks we can use if we're motivated
right now, but we can actually hit like send immediately.
Speaker 13 (47:32):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 14 (47:33):
Maybe you're driving right now, but you can talk to
a virtual assistant in your phone. You might ask it
to put a calendar alert in your calendar for later
today when you know you might have a moment, to
remind you.
Speaker 13 (47:44):
To follow through and choose a specific time.
Speaker 14 (47:46):
You could also ask that virtual assistant to send a ping,
a text, or an email to someone who can hold
you accountable and check in and say, hey, please ask
me when you see me, partner, roommate, friend tomorrow, if
I've followed.
Speaker 13 (48:00):
Through on my pledge to give, to give directly.
Speaker 14 (48:02):
We know that social accountability and making concrete plans with
reminders are two ways we can hold our future self
to account for the things we want to get done.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
And I especially love the social accountability suggestion because that
gives us a little bit of social connection and maybe,
just maybe that partner or friend roommate might also donate
to give directly and get a little happiness boost themselves.
Speaker 13 (48:22):
I love that perfect Yes, ask them to both nag
you and to give themselves.
Speaker 3 (48:27):
Love this, Katie, Thank you so much for helping us
try to figure out how we can use our biases
to feel better and do better in the world.
Speaker 14 (48:33):
Thanks so much for having me and for putting together
this wonderful compilation. I love gift directly and I'm really
excited about it.
Speaker 3 (48:39):
Even small acts of generosity, a moment of encouragement, a
few kind words, ten bucks donated to a good cause
can have incredible ripple effects. And the sooner you act
on a charitable impulse, the sooner you'll experience that positive impact.
So go ahead and join the Pods Fight Poverty campaign
by donating at GiveDirectly dot org slash happiness Lab. That's
(49:02):
GiveDirectly dot org slash happiness Lab. And if you're not
in a position to give, that's fine. Maybe you'd consider
sharing our campaign with your friends and colleagues. Just use
the hashtag Pods Fight Poverty to raise awareness, fight extreme poverty,
and unwrap a little gift of happiness for yourself too.
The Happiness Lab will continue in the holiday spirit for
(49:22):
the rest of the year. Next week, we'll be tackling
your holiday happiness woes with a very hilarious special guest
actor and podcaster Brain Wilson. That's all next time on
the Happiness Lab with me doctor Laurie Santos,
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hey everyone, Jr. Here it's the season of giving, and
yesterday was Giving Tuesday, a time based on the global
generosity movement that encourages people to do good and help others.
So in honor of Giving Tuesday, doctor Lorie Santos, host
of another Pushkin podcast, The Happiness Lab, teamed up with
(00:39):
the nonprofit Give Directly to help raise donations for people
experiencing extreme poverty. As part of her work with Gift Directly,
she's made a special episode of The Happiness Lab talking
with other podcasts hosts about their own experiences with giving,
times when they've given something meaningful to someone or have
been given something that has deeply impacted them. I sat
(01:03):
down with Lord to share my own experience of receiving
a gift. I didn't even realize I needed one that
came into my life at the perfect time. I hope
you enjoy it and that it makes you think about
how you show up for others and why it's so
important to do so. And in the spirit of giving,
you can join Pushkin and give Directly and making a
(01:24):
real difference for those in need. This year, Give Directly
is working to lift three entire villages in Rwanda out
of extreme poverty. They're aiming to raise a million dollars
by the end of the year, and every dollar counts.
Your donation will be delivered as straight cash into the
hands of families in these villages who know best what
(01:46):
they need. The donations can help families in Rwanda invest
in their futures by starting a business, buying livestock to
fertilize their farm, or paying school fees. So head to
give directly dot org slash pushkin to give what you
can and if you're a first time donor, giving Multiplier
will match your donation. So visit give directly dot org,
(02:09):
slash pushkin to help fight poverty. Thank you for your support. Okay,
enjoy the episode.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Hello, and welcome to a special edition of the Happiness
Lab podcast. I hope all my listeners who celebrate had
a happy Thanksgiving.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
But the day I really.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Look forward to each November is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.
Forget Black Friday and Cyber Monday, my holiday of choice
is Giving Tuesday.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Giving Tuesday is the.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Global holiday of charitable giving that falls right in the
midst of our shopping frenzy.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
A day that's not about commerce but compassion.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Here at the Happiness Lab, we tend to make a
big deal out of Giving Tuesday. Every year we share
a special episode that explores why doing good for others
is super good for our own happiness. We also like
to give our listeners a chance to team up and
donate to a charitable cause that really does good in
the world. For the past few years, that charity has
been given directly nonprofit that takes your cash and gives
(03:11):
it directly to people in extreme poverty to spend as
they see fit. But this year we are going even bigger.
We're bringing together the fans of some of my favorite
podcasts to raise even more money to fight poverty. Think
ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris, On Purpose with Jayshetty,
Revisionist History, Hidden Brain, How to Be a Better Human,
(03:31):
and dozens more. The campaign even has its own hashtag,
Pods Fight Poverty. Pods Fight Poverty is trying to raise
a million dollars this year, enough money to lift several
villages in Rwanda out of extreme poverty. If you want
to help, had to give directly dot org slash Happiness
Lab to donate what you can that's GiveDirectly dot org
slash Happiness Lab.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
If you're a fan of this show, you've.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Probably already heard about the great things GiB Directly can
do with a small donation from a listener like you.
Take the great work we did earlier this year, in
collaboration with author and YouTube star John Green, John and
I asked you to partner up with Gibdirectly to tackle
the deadly disease tuberculosis.
Speaker 5 (04:10):
Tuberculosis is an airborne disease that usually affects the lungs.
If left untreated, tuberculosis usually does result in death. Fortunately,
since the nineteen fifties, we've had a cure for tuberculosis.
It's a bacterial infection, so the curious antibiotics given every
day over four to six months.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
The problem is that many people with tb live in
parts of the world where they can't afford these life
saving drugs, So John and I asked our listeners to
help out. With lots of small donations of five or
ten bucks. We raised over one hundred thousand dollars to
fight this disease. That's incredible, right, But what's even more
incredible are the stories we heard about what this money
(04:47):
did for people living with the disease. Take one recipient, Margaret,
a thirty year old TB patient living in Malawi. Margaret's
TB could have easily been cured with a simple antibiotic,
but lacking the resources to get treatment, she eventually got.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Sicker and sicker.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
That is until she received the cash donation we provided
through gift Directly. With that small amount of money, she
was able to pay for the bicycle taxi she needed
to travel to a far off clinic where she was
able to finally start her drug treatment. I was overjoyed
when I received the cash transfer, Margaret wrote in her
thank you letter to our listeners. It felt like my
(05:23):
life had been given a second chance. I have hope again.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Months later, I still think.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Back to Margaret's story whenever I'm having a crappy day,
taking a moment to remember what the five or ten
bucks we collectively shared did not just for Margaret, but
for hundreds of other people who are struggling. That feels amazing,
Probably more amazing than any material gift I'll be getting
this holiday season. That good feeling is what the rest
of this episode is about. With the help of some
(05:50):
amazing fellow podcasters, I'm going to explore the enormous psychological
power of giving and receiving. We'll see how small acts
of kindness, a spare bit of cash, or a tiny
gesture of care can create huge ripples in a person's life.
I want these stories to serve as a reminder for
something our lying minds often forget that a great way
to treat ourselves is to do a small bit of
(06:12):
good for somebody else. To kick off these stories of
how doing good can make us feel good, let's look
at how receiving an act of kindness can change us.
And we'll do that with my first esteemed podcast host guest. Hi.
Speaker 6 (06:25):
My name's Tim Harford and I am the host of
Cautionary Tales.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Tim is a respected journalist and economist, but his story
of being the recipient of kindness goes back to a
time before he found fame working for the BBC or
hosting Cautionary Tales.
Speaker 6 (06:40):
This story took place nearly a quarter of a century ago.
I was visiting a friend in Cameroon, which is in
West Africa, very poor.
Speaker 7 (06:52):
Part of the world.
Speaker 6 (06:53):
I was in my mid twenties and I was on
edge because Cameron was at the time rated as one
of the most corrupt countries in the world, and corrupt
or not. People there were often really desperate. As a tourist,
you feel like you're a target, and so I was
always on the lookout. I had just had this sort
of suspicion. I went around my travels around Cameroon. I
(07:16):
had a great time, was treated wonderfully by everybody I met,
but I never lost that feeling of you need to
be careful. Then one day I was standing by the
roadside in a smallish town called the Menda with a
couple of Western friends, and I think we were waiting
for a bus, just bought some egg and chips. We're
(07:37):
having a good time, and we've just walked across country
several miles on this dust road. And as we're waiting,
a couple of guys zoom up behind us on a motorbike.
Two guys on one motorbike. I turn around, expecting some threat,
and they stopped right in front of me and one
(07:57):
of them just hands me something and I looked down
at it is this, and it's a passport. In fact,
it's my passport. I mean, I'm completely and why is
this guy giving me my own passport? And of course
I realized what's happened is the passport was in my
back pocket and I've sat down by the roadside miles
(08:19):
back and the passport must have fallen out, and these
guys have driven along this road on the motorbike. They've
spotted a British passport and they've gone all the way
down the road looking for the first guy they see
who looks British, which is me. Have they even got
my photo with my passport, And the amazing thing was
they handed it over and then they just drove off.
(08:40):
They weren't They didn't sort of stand around waiting for
a tip or reward or even really a thank so
it was just you know, there you go. I thought
you might need this, and off they went. And I
realized that this suspicion which with which I've been viewing everybody,
had been so much the opposite of how these guys
had actually behaved. I mean, I would have been even
(09:02):
more grateful if I had had a moment to realize
they even had a problem, because if I had been
stuck in Cameroon without my passport, that's a big problem
that's going to cause me a lot of headaches. But
they had solved the problem. Before I even realized they'd
solved the problem. They had completely defied my rather uncharitable
(09:22):
expectations of the people of Cameroon, and they're driven off
into the sunset without even waiting for a thank you.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
It also seems like they did a lot of work,
Like it sounds like they were like chasing you as
you're walking around all through the day to try to
find you too.
Speaker 6 (09:35):
Probably they came a couple of miles on the motorbike.
I mean it was probably ten or fifteen minutes. Maybe
I don't know at all really how much work they did,
But all I know is that they did it. And
they could easily have taken that passport and thought, well,
maybe we can turn this into cash somehow, or even
(09:56):
just maybe we can try and get a tip out
of this guy, or I.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Just left it on the ground, like, oh, well, you know,
I don't know this guy.
Speaker 6 (10:03):
Yeah, yeah, there's someone else's problem. Yeah, just ignored it.
But they didn't.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
I mean, I love that story, but it also points
out how like so many of our societies are probably
much more high trust societies than we assume, Like so
many people are out there doing better things than we think.
But I think we have minds that assume people are
kind of mistrusting. I actually, unfortunately, Tim, I actually blame
the economists on this a little bit because I feel like,
at least, all.
Speaker 6 (10:25):
Fine, yeah, sure, we kick the economists.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
I mean, at least the standard economists have been telling
us for a long time that, you know, we are
homo economicus. We are these selfish beings who are going
to go out.
Speaker 6 (10:34):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
So maybe the folks who returned your passport would do
it if they thought they could get, you know, some
cash off you, or they you know, maybe they get
some huge reputational benefit. Someone saw them do it and
that you know, now they kind of like praising them
and so on.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
But they wouldn't just do it just for the good
of doing it.
Speaker 6 (10:49):
Well, I mean, let me push back a little bit.
Let me push back a little bit and defend my
fellow economists. So the classic economic model, all it says
is that people have consistent preferences, and it's kind of
convenient to assume that those preferences are about consumption. Like
you're trying to spend as little money as possible and
get as much stuff as possible. All that money it
(11:09):
doesn't have to be you could, and I've seen I've
seen some beautiful economic models written where actually, my pleasure
is completely dependent on your pleasure, Laurie like the happier.
I can just see the glow in your eyes. I
know how happy you are, and the happier you are,
the happier that makes me. There's nothing in conventional economics
that makes that impossible. We tend not to make that
(11:31):
assumption because it's kind of why would you, And so
we simplify and we talk about the purchase of goods
and services and we ignore the altruistic bit. There's nothing
in classical economics that says people can't be altruistic. We,
I think, just haven't paid enough attention to that possibility.
And because we don't pay attention to the possibility, we
just set it to one side.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Are you surprised that we don't think of kind actions
as as valuable, as impactful as they often are.
Speaker 6 (11:56):
If I can just be a kind of amateur evolutionary
psychologist for a moment, I suppose you might naturally think
that we had evolved to be a little bit more
suspicious of people, particularly of strangers, because you know, it's
bad to have someone take advantage of you. But actually,
of course we evolved to be to be social beings,
and maybe we shouldn't be so surprised that people often
(12:18):
behave kindly to each other. I mean, I am aware
of some research in psychology. You'll know this kind of
work better than me, Laurie. But we often fail to generalize,
like we think, oh, if I found a wallet with
like a driving license in it, then you know i'd
contact the owner or I'd handed into the police station. Yeah,
(12:38):
of course that's what I'd do. But then you ask people,
You ask if other people would do that, and we think, oh, no,
other people would wouldn't do that. And it's not like
we think we're better than other people. It's just that
the two questions don't even overlap. It's almost as that
we've got a different circuit in our brain reflecting on
how we would behave or reflecting on how we think
(12:59):
somebody else will behave.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
And this is a challenge for the organization that we've
been working with give directly. Their philosophy is like we're
just going to give people money directly and let them
do with it what they want. That people in need
have the best ideas about how to spend their money
to make their situation better. But a lot of the
folks who are thinking about giving to give directly often
have the following problem, which is like, are people really
going to know what to do with the money? Are
(13:22):
they going to do something bad? Are they going to
buy something frivolous or something like that. It seems like
people just don't trust people to make the best decisions,
And I feel like this is part of the same
kind of bias we have as undercover economists. How do
you think of this bias and where what are we
doing wrong?
Speaker 6 (13:37):
Give the economists some credit. We definitely trust people to
make decisions in their own interests. There are cases where
you might go, look, the money is only useful if
it's coordinated, So actually, what this village really needs is
a bridge or a well. But in general, people are
going to be good stewards of their own money, and
they're going to be good judges of how to spend
(13:59):
that money because there's so much they know about their situation,
about the context, and about their own ambitions that nobody
else can know. And if you give them money, then
you're putting them in the best possible position to take
advantage of their own context and to fulfill their own ambitions.
We're sort of trained to believe that if somebody really
(14:22):
needs a handout, that must be because they lack judgment,
that they have made many poor decisions in the past,
otherwise they wouldn't need a handout. But in somewhere like Cameroon,
it's definitely not true. There are lots and lots of
people in really difficult situations in many countries in the world,
and absolutely not because of any bad decisions that they
(14:45):
themselves have made. So I think we need to shake
off this idea that if someone needs if someone needs
a handout, then by definition they can't be trusted with
the handout. We've kind We've got to break out of
that because that's just nonsense.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
So even an economist says that giving is good for us.
If you want to put that advice into effect right away,
then consider giving to the Pods Fight Poverty campaign. Just
go to GiveDirectly dot org slash happiness. The next podcaster
to share a story on the power of giving is
an old friend of the show.
Speaker 7 (15:15):
First of all, it's great to see you again. A
minute and hes yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Army Veteran j R.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Martinez was badly wounded in Iraq when the humphy he
was driving hit a roadside bomb. Forced to end his
military service, Jr. Entered a dark chapter, but he eventually
fought back, building a series of new careers, first as
a TV actor, then as a Dancing with the Stars champion,
and finally as the host of the inspiring podcast Medal
(15:41):
of Honor.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
Jr. Is a big fan of giving back.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
He's done an incredible amount of service for the veteran community,
but today he asked to share a story not of giving,
but of receiving, specifically of receiving a life changing gift
that he didn't even know he needed.
Speaker 8 (15:57):
In two thousand and nine, I was asked to do
the auction for a veteran's golf outing and it was
going to benefit a nonprofit set up to help, you know,
service members and their fans amilies. And immediately I was like,
of course, now I'm not an auctioneer, but I'm sure
I'll get up there and you know, try to do
my best.
Speaker 7 (16:15):
And I was like, well, what are some of the
auction items?
Speaker 8 (16:18):
And they said this, this, this, this, and a puppy
And so they bring out the puppy he's eight weeks old,
black lab and I hold him and I feel this
like connection. I'm financially going through my budget as a
you know, twenty seven year old. I like, how much
(16:39):
could I bid on this puppy? The max was like
I could probably do like six hundred bucks, like that's
the absolute max. So we get there and immediately like
that number has surpassed, like it we're not a sex hundred.
Speaker 7 (16:51):
That number has moved on.
Speaker 8 (16:52):
And so I'm holding the next auction item, this quilt,
and I'm ready to move it along. And a lady
raises her hand that bidden on the dog and says,
may I say something? So we're like, of course, So
she comes up to the stage. She says, we love animals,
we love dogs, we love this dog, we love this cause.
But unfortunately we have you know, pets at home, so
(17:15):
there's no room for this sweet dog at our house.
Speaker 7 (17:18):
And she says, so we want to give them, give
him to j R.
Speaker 8 (17:22):
And I'm like that quill, like I'm just like now
using it to like wipe all the tears and the
snot and everything.
Speaker 7 (17:29):
And I'm in shock.
Speaker 8 (17:31):
I was still going through my stages of you know,
like I was mad and I was navigating a lot
of emotional things and they give him to me and
I take him home and Laurie, I mean, he helped
me heal and he was my he was my companion
in all these stages of life that I navigated, and
(17:52):
I'm just forever like grateful And every time I would
see the couple that that that did that gesture for me,
I mean, as you can imagine, I always felt forever
indebted to them because of you know, what they gave
to me and the gift they gave to me. And
when he passed, it was one of the hardest things
that I've experienced in my life.
Speaker 7 (18:12):
What was his name, Romeo?
Speaker 8 (18:14):
And I remember like I named him Warrior because I
was like, well, it's for wounded warriors. You know, this
is the you know the mid twenties kid, you know,
guy naming the dog.
Speaker 7 (18:26):
And I was like, Warrior, Yeah, you're a warrior. Then
I was like, what am I going to call you for? Short?
War And I was like, well, I I don't know.
Speaker 8 (18:32):
I started noticing this pattern where people would see him
and they would just like gravitate to him, and I
was like, ah, You're no warrior, You're a Romeo, and
every time I would look at him, no matter what
stage of life that I was in, his look just
always reminded me to just be just to be present,
just to be with him, just to be with the environment.
(18:55):
Can't tell you how many times I would take him
to the park and we would just sit at the park,
just he and I.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
It also seemed like you didn't realize at that moment
that you really needed this kind gift, but then when
it came in your life, it really changed it.
Speaker 8 (19:07):
I had no clue. I had absolutely no clue that
this is what I needed. As much as I was
sitting here budgeting, like how much can I realistically afford
to bid on this dog? I was then thinking about
my life is busy, I can't have a dog right now,
Like who's going to watch the dog for me when
I'm when I have to travel.
Speaker 7 (19:24):
There were all these reasons.
Speaker 8 (19:25):
Why I also couldn't have one, And then the universe said,
this is what you need and gave it to me.
Speaker 7 (19:31):
And guess what I figured it out.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
I mean, I don't know how much folks ended up
spending on Romeo, it is clearly more than your six
hundred bucks that you're going to spend, you know, But
my guess is, whatever they spent, it actually wasn't as
much as you wound up getting out of Romeo. Like
the act of doing something nice for somebody has these
like incredible returns, like this huge return on investment that
we just don't often realize.
Speaker 7 (19:51):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 8 (19:52):
If Romeo was here today and someone offered five hundred
times more than what they spent, when I take it,
absolutely not, absolutely not. There is no price that I
can put on that gesture of what they did for me.
That's the place we got to operate from. Do give,
even if we never necessarily get to understand the full
(20:14):
impact that it had.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
And if you want to follow Jr's advice to do
and to give, then here's the url where you can
donate to the Pods Fight Poverty campaign. It's GiveDirectly dot
org slash Happiness Lab. It's time for a quick break,
but we'll return with the story of a world famous
author who carries cash for strangers in need and a
scientist who's seen the first hand benefits of an unexpectedly
(20:37):
kind word. The Happiness Lab special episode on the power
of giving will return in a moment. Welcome back to
the Happiness Lab special Giving Tuesday episode. In the spirit
of my favorite charitable holiday, I'm chatting with my favorite
podcasters about their personal stories of generosity.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Our goal is.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
To remind you that one of the quickest ways to
feel happier yourself is to give a little happiness back
to somebody else. Next up, we have Michael Lewis, best
selling author of Moneyball and The blind Side, and host
of the award winning podcast Against the Rules. Michael wanted
to share a new strategy he's been using to make
it as easy as possible for him to do good
(21:19):
for people in need.
Speaker 9 (21:20):
I made a decision to always carry a bunch of
ten dollars bills with me so that if I see
anybody who asked me for money, I just automatically give
them ten dollars, people on the streets.
Speaker 7 (21:32):
So I've started doing.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
It, and so how does it feel?
Speaker 9 (21:34):
So it is completely true that when you give something
to someone else you feel good.
Speaker 6 (21:41):
Totally feels good.
Speaker 9 (21:42):
But years ago, when I was working on the blind Side,
the Christian family, the dad and the family said to
me something in passing about giving that I've never been
able to get out of my head. When I hit
a little bump in my mind about giving, it's a
touchdown for me. And it's if it doesn't hurt a
little bit, you haven't given enough. I thought that was
(22:02):
a cool idea, and so you know, it's not a
natural act just to hand money over people.
Speaker 7 (22:08):
It hurts the tiny bit.
Speaker 9 (22:10):
So that also is a reassuring feeling.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
I bet each of those ten dollars bills that you
gave away, the benefit that came to you was way
more than ten bucks that you would have blown on
like two lattis or something silly.
Speaker 9 (22:21):
So this has only been gone on for a couple months,
so this only happened like five times. But I'm gonna
try to make this a habit forever, just because I
think it will change my relationship to just people on
the streets. Yeah, I don't mean people who are homeless.
I've just been like everybody around you, because especially like
if you're in a city, you kind of go through
the world waiting for someone to ask you for something,
(22:42):
and you have all those defenses up, and so those
defenses don't just operate against the people who are asking
you for money, they operate against everything. They're the enemy
of moving through the world in a good way, in
an open way, So it opens up things a little bit.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Yeah, I love this advice because it's so nicely tied
to the type of thing that we're doing. Would give directly, right,
Like their whole deal is that they just give these
cash transfers, no questions asked, And the act of doing
that means you're not kind of thinking in ways where
you're being mistrustful and kind of like analyzing people. Like
first of all, it's just like too much cognitive load
of like, well, what is this money going to go to?
Speaker 4 (23:19):
Is it going to go to something good or whatever?
Speaker 3 (23:21):
But more than the cognitive load, you just wind up
thinking all these bad theories about your fellow humans, right,
like they're going to spend this on something terrible, They're
going to use drugs or something like that. So just
committing like no, I'm just going to give them money.
I'm going to trust that other people have good intentions
of what they're going to do with it. First of all,
you get the benefit that you get from giving, but
also beyond that, you don't have all this like yucky
mistrust that comes with like wondering what someone who's going
(23:43):
to do with the money. It's just like is a
wonderful like cognitive load reducer and like negative social contagion reducer.
Speaker 9 (23:50):
Correct, all correct, So we'll see if I persist in this.
But this has been a little giving wrinkle in my life.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
I hope Michael's tiny wrinkle grows into a big ridge,
a subtle shift that turns into real positive change for
Michael and for anyone feeling a little inspired by his
new giving tactic. And if you're feeling newly inspired to
make a difference, you're a luck because you can take
part in our Pods Fight Poverty campaign right now. Just
had to give directly dot org slash Happiness Lab to
(24:19):
give what you can. Next up is a story of
kindness from one of my former Yale students, a fellow
psychologist who was also the host of an award winning podcast,
Plus is one of my dear friends.
Speaker 10 (24:31):
Hey, I'm doctor Mayah Schunker and I'm the host of
a slight change of Plans And.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
So Maya, what's your story of unexpected benefits of kindness?
Speaker 10 (24:41):
My moment is actually one from elementary school.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
So we're going way back for this one.
Speaker 10 (24:46):
Yeah, we're going all the way back. I was bullied
a lot as a kid.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
And wait, really, I'm surprised by this. Somehow I didn't
know this about you.
Speaker 10 (24:54):
Oh my gosh, oh my god, so many tears, so
much anxiety.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
Wait, who was your worst bully? Mine was? I won't
say her name, I'll say it was Jessica t She
was terrible.
Speaker 10 (25:04):
Jacqueline Callen Lindsay, it was a trio and Carly too.
But these we girls in my neighborhood that weren't super
nice to me, and it was really hard. At the time,
I just thought, oh, I'm a deeply flawed, broken person.
With some hindsight, I realized, oh, how interesting. I was
one of very very few kids of color in my
whole school. I wonder if maybe that played a role.
(25:26):
But regardless of what contributed to the meanness and the cruelty,
I spent my childhood feeling just really insecure and really
really anxious. And these bullies gave credence to my worst
fears about myself.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
Was this like in the school yard, on the bus,
like where did this happen?
Speaker 10 (25:43):
Oh my god, cafeteria so Carly one day was like,
you're so ugly. It's painful for me. To look at you,
and then got up and went to another table. There
was another episode in elementary school where the kids had
decided in advance that they were going to pretend I
was invisible that day. So when I went to go
drink from my milk cart and I lifted up, they
were like, oh, there's a milk carton floating in the air.
(26:04):
How funny. And now there's a fork in the air, Like,
oh my god. I'm likeif there were, I I literally
don't exist.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
I want to like jump through the zoom and hug you.
But wait, how is this a story about kindness? I
just don't see where this is.
Speaker 10 (26:15):
Okay, Sorry, Sorry. So I was bullied a lot, and
there were a few kids that were so deeply kind
to me and weren't just nice behind the scenes, but
were advocates for me when it really mattered. So I
remember there was this one girl in my neighborhood named Adrian,
and we were on the school bus. The school bus
(26:37):
was brutal because like a lot of the kids didn't
want to sit next to me, So it was a
whole thing. It's like, we'd rather sit five in a
seat rather than sit next to Maya. You know kids
are terrible, right, So I remember some kids were saying
some nasty things to me and adrian stood up and
was like, all of you guys, just shut up.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
Maya is awesome.
Speaker 10 (26:56):
I just remember those words in little kid Maya's brain
were transformative, like I had to transcendent experience in that moment,
and I just remember being so mood move by the
fact that she was willing to stand up and say
these things in front of the people that I was
really scared by because I'm not exactly the type of
person who would have fought back in those moments and
(27:19):
like really stood my ground. Instead, I thought, oh, I know,
let me try to kill them with kindness. Maybe that
will win over the bully. And that is clearly a
very losing strategy when it comes to engaging with bullies effectively.
So Adriane did this for me, and it really helped
change the landscape for me. It's not like the bullies
were suddenly nice, but I now felt like Adrianne was
(27:39):
in my corner, and it changes your whole mentality when
you feel like even one person is on your team.
And I was fast forwarding decades to think about how
this had affected me as a person, and actually, Laurie,
it was a moment from my time at Yale when
I was your undergrad student. There was a guy in
(28:00):
my dorm room who was being bullied because he was
suffering from depression and bipolar disorder, and it didn't fit
with the kind of frat boy, machismo athlete vibe. I
guess that his social group entertained and they were so
cruel to him. They were so mean, and I remember
(28:22):
being like, I'm going to be Adrian for him, for Noah,
and I stood up to those guys and I was like,
you guys suck, and Noah's amazing, and how dare you
be so ignorant about mental illness and those struggles. I
even remember at our reunion, I gave this guy so much.
I don't know what a kosher word I can say
(28:43):
on this podcast is, but it was not a fun exchange,
I'll say, for this other guy, because I was like,
how could you treat Noah like that? And I actually
just got a text message from Noah a couple months
ago saying, I remember in college when I was going
through such a hard time, Maya, you were so on
my side and you were so nice to me, and
it really touched my heart that I could pay it
(29:04):
forward like that because I remember having been on the
receiving end of that. See I told you Lauria had
a happy ending.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Okay, that was good. I'm glad that at the ending
came up. It wasn't just like mya getting tortured on
the bus.
Speaker 11 (29:14):
No.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
But I love this story because it shows like Adrian's
probably not sitting there thinking about like how she helpedes
one person in elementary school, but you right now are
thinking about how that helped you to this day and
a decade after that, it was also helping somebody else,
like in college. And so we forget not just like
how long our kind events wind up helping the people
(29:34):
that we do nice things for, but also like how
many times these turn into like these cascades where like
more nice things happen over time.
Speaker 10 (29:42):
Absolutely, they had these beautiful spillover effects, right. And there's
this concept in psychology called moral elevation, and it's basically
when you witness someone else's extraordinary actions.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
So it could be their kindness, or their courage.
Speaker 10 (29:56):
Or their self sacrifice, or their ability to forgive other
people any character trait that you find really amazing and impressive.
That can lead to this warm, fuzzy feeling in your
chest that makes you feel like, wow, humans are capable
of extraordinary thing things. But importantly, when you experience moral elevation,
it doesn't just feel good, It actually changes your brain.
(30:17):
When you see someone challenge your understanding of the world
and about what humans are capable of, it cracks open
your own imagination about what you are capable of. And
I love that insight because what it's done in my
own life is it's made me a more keen observer.
So when I'm walking in the coffee shop, I'll notice
someone being extra nice to the barista, or I'll notice
(30:39):
that someone went out of their way to smile at
me when I'm going on a walk. And these moments
feel so good in the moment, but they also have
these long lasting effects on our psychology and our view
of others, and importantly of ourselves and our potential our
capabilities as people. And so it's really enriched my life
to see the world through a moral beauty lens.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
This is such a great example. I feel like, especially
in winter when everything's feeling so dark and so glum,
that like they're just these examples of beauty and guidness
out there that we can fine and that seeing them
isn't just like witnessing something that's beautiful, it's also changing
us to exactly.
Speaker 10 (31:15):
And yes, winter is dark, but also the world like,
we're in a really dark place right now. It's very
hard to stay hopeful and positive. And I have just
felt like reminding myself that actually humans are so good
at their core, because you can witness these beautiful acts
every single day, and that's in my control, unlike so
much else that's happening in the world. Is a wonderful
(31:36):
way of reclaiming my agency and allowing myself moments of happiness,
moments of joy in everyday life against the backdrop of
a lot of suffering in the world, you know. And
so yeah, I've just been grateful for the gift that
we've gotten from science in the space of moral elevation.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
And if Maya story has given you a moment of
moral elevation, remember that you can choose to become an
Adrian too.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
You can do that by joining me and dozens.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Of other podcasters as part of the Pods Fight Poverty campaign.
Why not donate five bucks right now by heading to
give Directly dot org slash happiness Lablet's GiveDirectly dot org
slash Happiness Lab. It's time for a break, but when
we return, I'll get to share my own story of
the power of giving and how four words that I
(32:22):
quickly scribbled nearly twenty years ago said a little girl
on the path to becoming an aerospace engineer.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
The Happiness Lab will be right back.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Welcome back to the Happiness Lab special Giving Tuesday episode.
Today we're exploring just how much we underestimate the psychological
power of small acts of generosity. And the next story
is one that really hits home for me because the
person in this story doing all that underestimating of the
power of giving was me.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
So in two thousand and eight, I was six years old.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
This is Avery Miller.
Speaker 12 (33:03):
And I didn't know too much you know about the world,
I suppose, but I knew that I wanted to be
an astronaut because I'd read books about them, I'd seen
them on TV.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
And my parents were very encouraging of all of that.
Speaker 12 (33:15):
And my mom realized there was an event called World
Science Festival.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
The World Science Festival is a multimedia science education organization
that began as an annual event in New York City
to make science fun and accessible to the general public.
Big panels and talks, interactive exhibits, and kid friendly games.
Avery's mom thought her daughter would love it, so the
Millers decided to take the four hour trek from their
home in Boston to New York City.
Speaker 12 (33:41):
So we went to the festival and there's a lot
of really cool outside stuff and you know, the typical
kid activities. But my mom was like, you know, I
think Avery would really love going to some talks, which
an insane thing to think about a six year old,
but that's my mom. So we went to quite a
few talks, but I think they were mostly men, so
(34:02):
not really role models.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
That's when Avery stumbled on a panel that would change
her life forever. It was called Cool Job, where scientists
shared the cool questions they explored and the fun places
they got to work. There was a Disney imagineer, a
forensics expert who used science to solve crimes, and an
early career psychologist whose name you might recognize if you're
a fan of the show.
Speaker 11 (34:24):
She spends a lot of time thinking about how we think,
and how we play, and how we fall in love
by hiking through the jungles of Puerto Rico watching monkeys.
Please awarim welcome for doctor Lori Santos.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
Hello everyone, thanks for having me today. So I'm going
to tell you a little bit about a job that
I bet many of you are thinking about, and that's
the kind of job that's involved with working with animals.
So fun fact, long before I began studying happiness, I
spent a lot of my early career trying to understand
the human mind by studying the cognitive abilities of monkeys.
(35:01):
Back in two thousand and eight, I was asked to
talk about that primate work on the Cool Jobs panel
at the World Science Festival. The organizers of the panel
assumed it would be of interest to college students thinking
about their future careers. But what we didn't expect was
to have so many little kids in the audience, little
kids who were apparently very impressed that there were jobs
where you could hang out with monkeys, Little kids just
(35:23):
like Avery.
Speaker 12 (35:24):
I was like, you get to be outside, you get
to do science, And that was sort of a mind
blowing moment of like, oh my god, there's someone like
me who's doing all this really cool stuff and my
mom again being really cool, was like, well.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Let's go talk to her.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Avery's mom wasn't the only audience member to have that idea,
as The New York Times would later report, quote after
the event, Doctor Santo's was mobbed by a group of
children curious about what she calls monkey magic tricks. I
spent over an hour after that panel sitting on stage
talking with kids about my work, and one of those
kids was an eager little girl named Avery.
Speaker 12 (36:02):
So I went up and I think I told you
all about how I wanted to be an astronaut and
how I wanted to go to MIT, because you knowing
up in Boston, if you want to do science, you
want to go to MIT. And we didn't have anything
for you to sign except for the back of the
ticket on the email my mom printed out, So you
signed it.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
I have it here if you want to see it.
Speaker 4 (36:22):
Oh my gosh, can you hold it up?
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Yeah, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
We like go monkey drawings. Yeah, exit.
Speaker 12 (36:28):
So I drew monkeys on it as you can see,
which I'm sure my mom told me not to. But
you wrote have fun at MIT, Love Laurie, and I
was like, this is the coolest thing ever.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
A scientist thinks I can be a scientist.
Speaker 12 (36:43):
We framed it and then I put it on my desk,
and then I guess I never moved it off my desk.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
I mean, like I look at it all the time.
Speaker 12 (36:52):
In high school, I'd sit there and do my homework,
and so it's like, you know what this means, I
can do it. You know, as much as I hated
chemistry at the time, okay, I got to get the
chemistry done because I'm going to go to MIT.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
So it was just this constant little reminder that like,
I could do that.
Speaker 4 (37:07):
I mean, it's so funny.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
I signed lots of things for lots of folks, and
just the idea that they would keep them is really cool.
Speaker 4 (37:12):
But also just that it turned into an inspiration for you.
Speaker 12 (37:15):
I failed a class, almost failed a class in the
eighth grade and it was science, and I was like.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
That means I can't do it.
Speaker 12 (37:24):
Because if everyone looks at you as the science kid
and you're going around failing science classes.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
It's hard.
Speaker 12 (37:31):
So I looked at it and I was like, you
know what, someone says that I can do it. I
saw someone else do it. You know, there were a
lot of people rooting me on. But I had this
thing from such a young age. One person telling you
you can do it when you didn't even know that
was an option is perhaps more meaningful. So yeah, it
was a big deal to me then it's still a
(37:52):
big deal to me now. I had it on my
desk all through college, all the dorms I lived in.
I have it now that I live on my own.
It's just always lived on my desk. It's always just
been there. I also have a Sally Ride picture, though,
so you're up there with her.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
That's amazing. That sounds like you wound up going to college.
Did you end up going to MIT or what happened?
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 12 (38:12):
So by senior year I realized that I did not
want to go to MIT. Mit is great, but it
wasn't the right fit. I ended up going to Purdue.
I became an aerospace engineer.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Wait, like mind boggling, Like you became an aerospace engineer.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
That's so cool.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
I reconnected with Avery and learned about her story when
she sent me an email out of the blue thanking
me for being such an inspiration to her. She wrote
in her letter, you took the time to speak to me,
learn my name, and just made me feel like no
matter what I could do it. Thank you for being
an inspiration in six year old me's life. I know
that you carved the way for this field to be
(38:49):
one that women like me can thrive in.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
I mean, wow, I had.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
No idea that scribbling those four little words nearly twenty
years ago would have had such an impact on someone's life.
I also didn't realize that those words would ripple into
the next generation of scientists too.
Speaker 12 (39:07):
I think one of the things that I learned and
I really appreciated when I met you when I was
young was that you didn't talk to me like I
was a little kid. I never felt like someone was
talking down to me, which I think in STEM we
have a tendency to do when people don't understand stuff.
I think it was Einstein, though I could be misquoting,
who said if you can't explain it to a five
(39:28):
year old, you don't understand it. There's something to be
said for approaching someone on their level. That's how people
can hold on and be like, wow, I really do
want to learn more. It definitely makes me think about
how I'm giving my time, because, like I mentor middle
schoolers and I'm like, maybe one day one of these
middle schoolers will reach out and you know, same sort
of thing of like, oh, you impacted me, so who knows.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Look at you.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
The six year old has become an adult now, I know.
I mean one of the reasons the story is so
compelling for me also just that like I affected someone
who's so cool and doing such cool stuff now was
just amazing.
Speaker 12 (40:00):
The fact that someone who speaks to John Green thinks
I'm cool.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
It's possibly the coolest thing ever.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
I'm sure he would think you're cool too, But I mean,
it's just like you just have these short interactions in
life where you don't necessarily realize how much you're affecting people.
And I think if you can have those interactions in
a way that are like positive or encouraging, we just
like don't know the ripple effect of the kind of
thing that we can do to other people. And so
it was just such a reminder of like, oh my gosh,
(40:28):
I can have this like incredibly long standing, like you know,
twenty year ish positive effect and I might not be
realizing I could do that right now.
Speaker 12 (40:34):
And also the fact that I can reconnect with you
after twenty years and it still be something meaningful.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
I'm curious, was there a moment that you decided to
reach back out, Like, was there like a catalyst of
why you decided to reach out when you did.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
I'm hoping to go back to school eventually.
Speaker 12 (40:50):
So I've been studying for exams, and sometimes you have
just a day where you're looking at your exam book
and you're like, there is no way that I can
keep doing this. There's no way I can keep answering problems.
And I looked at the note, which again sits on
my desk all the time, so I'm looking at it,
and I'm like, you know, I should really reach out
to her and tell her that this is impactful.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
This really just like blew my mind. And really, just
even this conversation, I feel like my face is going
to hurt from smiling after talking about.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Me as well, which is a great thing.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
Avery's story is a powerful example of how a few
simple words can shape someone's life in unimaginable ways, but
it also shows how absolutely great it feels to be
the person who gives that small act of kindness. And yet,
even when we know these small gestures matter, most of
us still struggle to actually do them. We put off
reaching out, we delay helping, we wait for the right
(41:43):
time to give. Why do we procrastinate on doing the
very thing that will make us and other people feel
so good? To find out? I tagged in our final
podcast host guest, a behavioral scientist who has studied this
exact problem. Katie, do you want to start by introducing yourself?
Speaker 13 (42:00):
I'd be delighted.
Speaker 14 (42:01):
My name is Katie Milkman, and I am a professor
at the Wharton School, host of the podcast Choiceology.
Speaker 13 (42:06):
And author of the book How to Change.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
So, Katie, we've just heard all these amazing things that
happen when people are nice to each other and do
nice things for each other, including with money. We've also
just heard not just what happens to the people who
receive these wonderful things, but also what happens to you,
the donor, in terms of your happiness and how great
you feel. But the problem is that our minds are stupid,
and sometimes we can know all this stuff and still
(42:28):
not put it into practice. This is the kind of
thing that you study, right.
Speaker 13 (42:33):
Yes, although I wouldn't say our minds are stupid.
Speaker 14 (42:35):
I think our minds are incredible, but they're constantly taking shortcuts,
and they're sort of wired for situations that don't always
optimize our current environment in the modern era.
Speaker 13 (42:46):
So, like, the mind is amazing. I don't want to
denigrate the modit.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
Okay, yeah, no, no does to the mind great. You know,
we're walking around really smart primates built the internet all
this stuff, But we sometimes forget the importance of doing
for other people, like when it comes to our social connection.
Speaker 4 (42:59):
I think this is about where we really get it wrong.
Speaker 14 (43:01):
Yeah, no, absolutely, we don't anticipate how good it will
feel to you know, engage in conversations, engage in gift giving,
just be kind to others in a wide variety of ways.
We don't realize how much that will actually generate happiness
for us.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
Our minds are also stupid in that we just like
forget stuff. Like I'm guessing a lot of people right
now are like, oh my gosh, it's a great opportunity
to give directly, but like you actually have to do that,
and like forgetfulness and friction is bad, that's right.
Speaker 13 (43:29):
Yeah, follow through is.
Speaker 14 (43:29):
One of the main barriers to change that I have studied, Like,
we need to remind people, we need to catch them
in a moment when they can take action. And actually
this relates to some research I did a number of
years ago related to giving. So this was a project
led by Amanda Schwan, who's an amazing professor at Michigan State,
and also with my colleague here, Jed Kessler, where we
were able to get data from the University of Pennsylvania's
(43:52):
hospital system on asks they made to pass patients to give. Right, So,
you've had experience with the University of Pennsylvanian hospital system.
You were here in patient for some sort of service
or treatment. You have to stay overnight, right that's kind
of a big deal, or you're checked into the hospital.
So you're probably feeling a lot of gratitude right now,
and you have an opportunity when the university asks would
(44:13):
you give to this hospital system, you have an opportunity
to express that gratitude. The data we got allowed us
to look at whether or not those mailings came right
away or at a time delay, because they send them
in batches every few months. So if the batch send
happens to occur just a couple of weeks after you
leave the hospital, you're going to get it real quickly.
(44:33):
But if it happens a few months later, well, then
it's going to be a long time after your inpatients
day that you're going to be asked would you be
willing to reciprocate and make it a donation. And what
was interesting is that we found a pretty steep decay.
So if we hit you right after you've had this
positive experience, you're much more likely to give your feeling
still that warmth and gratitude and remembering how meaningful it
(44:53):
was to be taken care of. Whereas if a little
time passes the hot state, the sort of warmth and
the reciprocity feelings, those positive feelings that generate the decision
to give, those are what's decaying. And that also presumably
suggests that you're not going to feel as good about
making that reciprocal gesture if your strong feelings have dissipated
(45:16):
and you wait. So one of the things I think
that teaches us about giving is generally when we are
remembering when we're in that hot state, when we realize
how good it will make us feel, like, take action
right away, don't let that moment slip. And I think
more similarly in so many parts of your life, like
when you're feeling gratitude to someone, or when you've had
a really positive experience and you want to make sure
(45:37):
you don't forget to tell someone you know, you were
a great professor, Laurie, and I'm so grateful for this
thing you did, or you know, thank you for mentoring me.
Speaker 13 (45:47):
Whatever it is.
Speaker 14 (45:48):
Express that gratitude immediately, because you're going to forget if
you let the moment pass. And I think, you know,
one of the things I've studied in my research in
other domains is just that our motivation in general waxes
and wanes like over time. Right, we years ago did
an episode together Laurie about some of my work with
Hanschen Dai of UCLA on the fresh start effect, that
there are these moments when we're we're motivated to make
(46:10):
a change in our lives.
Speaker 13 (46:11):
And I think that's just part.
Speaker 14 (46:12):
Of a bigger process, Like we don't walk around the
world with like constant flat states of emotion and motivation.
We're moving all over the place and capitalizing on the
hot state feelings is important to doing the things that
are good for us in the long run, that are
good for our relationships and our happiness.
Speaker 4 (46:27):
Because whenever we do it.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
We're going to feel good doing that right in your
fresh start work where you looking when when do people
start exercising? Whatever, you get the exercise habit going, that's
going to have benefits for you. Whenever you actually get
the gift done. The kind words said, you're going to
experience benefit. But if you wait and the motivation goes away,
then you're never going to wind up getting those benefits.
Speaker 13 (46:46):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (46:47):
So, if someone's listening to this right now and they're thinking,
oh my gosh, I want to give to give directly,
how do they lock it in?
Speaker 4 (46:53):
Do they like, pause the episode and just go do.
Speaker 13 (46:55):
A Poe episode? Do it right now, do not wait.
Speaker 14 (46:57):
That's right, because that feeling will decay faster than you realize.
And so this is the moment to do it. Don't wait,
don't delay. You think you're going to do it tomorrow,
but you won't, So do it right now.
Speaker 4 (47:07):
Okay, we're going to do a pause.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
So hopefully during that little audio break, so folks pause
the episode and actually gave to give directly. But I'm
guessing some folks maybe couldn't do it immediately. Are there
other social science hacks we can use if we're motivated
right now, but we can actually hit like send immediately.
Speaker 13 (47:32):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 14 (47:33):
Maybe you're driving right now, but you can talk to
a virtual assistant in your phone. You might ask it
to put a calendar alert in your calendar for later
today when you know you might have a moment, to
remind you.
Speaker 13 (47:44):
To follow through and choose a specific time.
Speaker 14 (47:46):
You could also ask that virtual assistant to send a ping,
a text, or an email to someone who can hold
you accountable and check in and say, hey, please ask
me when you see me, partner, roommate, friend tomorrow, if
I've followed.
Speaker 13 (48:00):
Through on my pledge to give, to give directly.
Speaker 14 (48:02):
We know that social accountability and making concrete plans with
reminders are two ways we can hold our future self
to account for the things we want to get done.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
And I especially love the social accountability suggestion because that
gives us a little bit of social connection and maybe,
just maybe that partner or friend roommate might also donate
to give directly and get a little happiness boost themselves.
Speaker 13 (48:22):
I love that perfect Yes, ask them to both nag
you and to give themselves.
Speaker 3 (48:27):
Love this, Katie, Thank you so much for helping us
try to figure out how we can use our biases
to feel better and do better in the world.
Speaker 14 (48:33):
Thanks so much for having me and for putting together
this wonderful compilation. I love gift directly and I'm really
excited about it.
Speaker 3 (48:39):
Even small acts of generosity, a moment of encouragement, a
few kind words, ten bucks donated to a good cause
can have incredible ripple effects. And the sooner you act
on a charitable impulse, the sooner you'll experience that positive impact.
So go ahead and join the Pods Fight Poverty campaign
by donating at GiveDirectly dot org slash happiness Lab. That's
(49:02):
GiveDirectly dot org slash happiness Lab. And if you're not
in a position to give, that's fine. Maybe you'd consider
sharing our campaign with your friends and colleagues. Just use
the hashtag Pods Fight Poverty to raise awareness, fight extreme poverty,
and unwrap a little gift of happiness for yourself too.
The Happiness Lab will continue in the holiday spirit for
(49:22):
the rest of the year. Next week, we'll be tackling
your holiday happiness woes with a very hilarious special guest
actor and podcaster Brain Wilson. That's all next time on
the Happiness Lab with me doctor Laurie Santos,
Host
Malcolm Gladwell
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