December 2, 2025 • 47 mins
According to the science, it really is better to give than receive. Donating a dollar; sharing a kind word or lending someone a hand changes lives, but can also hugely boost your happiness. So we're teaming up with other podcasts from Hidden Brain to Revisionist History to ask you to give to a charity helping some of the poorest people around. We're calling it #PodsFightPoverty.
Go to givedirectly.org/happinesslab right now and give whatever you can. And the first $500,000 we donate will be matched thanks to our friends at Giving Multiplier!
Even a small donation will make you feel good and have a much larger impact on the world than you thought possible. To help inspire you, this special episode examines the science of giving and shares stories of heartwarming and impactful acts of kindness.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Hello and welcome to a special edition of the
Happiness Lab podcast. I hope all my listeners who celebrate
had a happy Thanksgiving. But the day I really look
forward to each November is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. Forget
(00:35):
Black Friday and Cyber Monday, my holiday of choice is
Giving Tuesday. Giving Tuesday is the global holiday of charitable
giving that falls right in the midst of our shopping frenzy,
a day that's not about commerce but compassion. 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
(00:58):
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,
a nonprofit that takes your cash and gives it directly
to people in extreme poverty to spend as they see fit.
But this year we are going even bigger. We're bringing
(01:20):
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, and dozens more.
The campaign even has its own hashtag, Pods Fight Poverty.
Pods Fight Poverty is trying to raise a million dollars
(01:41):
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, let's GiveDirectly dot org slash happiness Lab.
If you're a fan of this show, you've probably already
heard about the great things GiB directly can do with
a small donation from a listener like you. Take the
(02:01):
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 GiB direct to tackle the
deadly disease tuberculosis.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
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 1 (02:28):
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
(02:49):
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
sicker and sicker. That is until she received the cash
donation we provided through gibdirectly. With that small amount of money,
(03:11):
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 life had been given a second chance. I have
hope again. Months later, I still think back to Margaret's story.
(03:31):
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 were 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 amazing fellow podcasters,
(03:54):
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 lying
minds often forget that a great way to treat ourselves
is to do a small bit of good for somebody else.
(04:15):
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.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Hi, my name's Tim Harford, and I am the host
of Cautionary Tales.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
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 3 (04:42):
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 part of the world. I was
in my mid twenties, and I was on edge because
you Cameroon was at the time rated as one of
the most corrupt countries in the world, and corrupt or not,
(05:05):
people there were often really desperate. As a tourist 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 had a
great time, was treated wonderfully by everybody I met, but
I never lost that feeling of you need to be careful.
(05:25):
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 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
(05:49):
zoom up behind us on a motorbike. Two guys on
one motorbike. I turned around, expecting some threat, and they
stopped right in front of me and one 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 bewildered. Why is this guy giving
(06:11):
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 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 have gone all the way down the road
looking for the first guy they see who looks British,
(06:34):
which is me. They even got my photo with my passport,
and the amazing thing was they handed it over and
then they just drove off. 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
(06:54):
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 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
(07:15):
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 expectations of the people of Cameroon,
and they're driven off into the sunset without even waiting
for a thank you.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
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 3 (07:37):
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 maybe we can turn this into cash somehow, or
(07:57):
even just maybe we can try and get a tip
out of this guy.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Or just left it on the ground, like oh, well,
you know, I don't know this guy.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Yeah, yeah, there's someone else's problem. Yeah, just ignored it.
But they didn't that story.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
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 that 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.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
All fine, yeah, sure we kick the economists.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
I mean, at least the standard economists have been telling
us for a long time that you know, we are
home economic as we are these selfish beings who are
going to go out.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
You know.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
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 benefits. Someone saw them do it and
that you know, now they kind of like praising them
and so on. But they wouldn't just do it, just
for the good of doing it well, I mean, let.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
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 for that money. It doesn't have to be
(09:12):
you could and I've 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
(09:32):
to make that 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 1 (09:51):
Are you surprised that we don't think of kind actions
as as valuable as impactful as they often are?
Speaker 3 (09:58):
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
(10:20):
behave kindly to each other. I mean, I am aware
of some research in psychology. All know this kind of
work better than me, Laurie, But we often failed 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 hand it into the police station. Yeah,
(10:40):
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
(11:00):
somebody else will behave.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
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
(11:23):
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 3 (11:39):
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
(12:01):
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
(12:23):
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
(12:46):
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 1 (12:59):
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 Give Directly or slash Happiness Lab. The next
podcaster to share a story on the power of giving
is an old friend of the show.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
First of all, it's great to see you again.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
A minute and hes yeah. Army veteran JR. Martinez was
badly wounded in Iraq when the humpy 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
(13:40):
as the host of the inspiring podcast Medal of Honor. Jr.
Is a big fan of giving back. 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 5 (13:58):
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 families. 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. And I was like, well, what are some
(14:19):
of the auction items? 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
(14:40):
of like, how much 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 sex hundred. That number has moved on. And
so I'm holding the next auction item, this quilt, and
I'm ready to move it along, and a lady raises
(15:02):
her hand that bitted on the dog and says, may
I say something? So we're like, of course, So she
comes up to the state. 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
there's no room for this sweet dog at our house.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
And she says, so we.
Speaker 5 (15:21):
Want to give them give him to j R. 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 1 (15:31):
And I'm in shock.
Speaker 5 (15:32):
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
(15:54):
I'm just forever like grateful And every time I would
see the couple 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 1 (16:13):
What was his name, Romeo?
Speaker 5 (16:16):
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, you know, And I was like, warrior, Yeah,
you're a warrior. Then I was like, what am I
going to call you for?
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Short war?
Speaker 5 (16:32):
And I was like, well, I don't know. 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
(16:54):
with him, just to be with the environment. 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 1 (17:02):
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 5 (17:09):
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? There were all these
reasons why I also couldn't have one, and then the
(17:29):
universe said, this is what you need and gave it
to me. And guess what I figured it out.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
I mean, I don't know how much folks ended up
spending on Romeo. It was 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 4 (17:53):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
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
(18:16):
impact that it had.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
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 has seen the first hand benefits of an
(18:38):
unexpectedly 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. Our goal
(19:00):
is 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.
I'm 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
(19:20):
do good for people in need.
Speaker 6 (19:22):
I made a.
Speaker 7 (19:22):
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 1 (19:34):
So I started doing it, and so how does it feel?
Speaker 7 (19:36):
So it is completely true that when you give something
to someone else you feel good.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Totally feels good.
Speaker 7 (19:44):
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 a cool idea. And so you know, it's not
(20:07):
a natural act just to hand money over people. It
hurts the tiny bit. So that also is a reassuring feeling.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
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 lattes or something silly.
Speaker 7 (20:22):
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.
Speaker 8 (20:35):
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,
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
(20:58):
an open way.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
So it opens up things a little bit. 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,
(21:20):
what is this money going to go to? Is it
going to go to something good or whatever? 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 gonna 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,
(21:40):
you don't have all this like yucky mistrust that comes
with like wondering what someone who's going to do with
the money. It's just like is a wonderful like cognitive
load reducer and like negative social contagion reducer. Correct. All correct.
Speaker 8 (21:54):
So we'll see if I persist in this.
Speaker 7 (21:56):
But this has been a little giving wrinkle in my life.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
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 a 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
(22:21):
to 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 6 (22:33):
Hey, I'm doctor Mayah Schunker and I'm the host of
A slight Change of Plans.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
And so, Maya, what's your story of unexpected benefits of kindness?
Speaker 6 (22:43):
My moment is actually one from elementary school.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
So we're going way back for this one.
Speaker 6 (22:48):
Yeah, we're going all the way back. I was bullied
a lot as a kid.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
And wait, really, I'm surprised by this. Somehow I didn't
know this about you.
Speaker 6 (22:56):
Oh my gosh, Oh my god, so many tears, so
much anxiety.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
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 6 (23:06):
Jacqueline Callen Lindsay it was a trio and Carly too.
But these were 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.
(23:28):
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 1 (23:41):
Was this like in the school yard, on the bus,
like where did this happen?
Speaker 4 (23:45):
Oh my god?
Speaker 6 (23:45):
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 cart and floating in the air. How funny.
(24:06):
And now there's a fork in the air, Like, oh
my god, I'm like the pretending I literally don't exist.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
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 6 (24:16):
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.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
The school bus.
Speaker 6 (24:38):
The school bus 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 1 (24:56):
Maya is awesome.
Speaker 6 (24:58):
I just remember those words in little kid Maya's brain
were transformative, Like I had to transcendent experience in that moment,
and I I just remember being so moved 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
(25:21):
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 Adrienne was
(25:41):
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
(26:02):
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.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
They were so.
Speaker 6 (26:22):
Mean, and I remember 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 a
reunion I gave this guy so much. I don't know
(26:43):
what a kosher word I can say 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
(27:04):
my heart that I could pay it forward like that
because I remember having been on the receiving end that
See I told you, Laurie, it had a happy ending.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Okay, that was good. I'm glad that at the ending
came up. It wasn't just like Maya getting tortured on
the bus.
Speaker 6 (27:15):
No.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
But I love this story because it shows like Adrian's
probably not sitting there thinking about like how she helped
this 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
(27:36):
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 6 (27:44):
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. So it could
be their kindness, or their courage, or their self sacrifice,
or their ability to forgive other people, any character trait
that you find really amazing and impressive that can lead
(28:04):
to this warm, fuzzy feeling in your chest that makes
you feel like, wow, humans are capable of extraordinary things.
But importantly, when you experience moral elevation, it doesn't just
feel good, It actually changes your brain. When you see
someone challenge your understanding of the world and about what
humans are capable of, it cracks open your own imagination
(28:26):
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 that someone went
out of their way to smile at me. When I'm
going on a walk, and these moments feel so good
(28:46):
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 1 (29:02):
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 guidnance
out there that we can find, and that seeing them
isn't just like witnessing something that's beautiful, it's also changing us.
Speaker 6 (29:15):
To exactly 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.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
Happening in the world.
Speaker 6 (29:37):
Is a wonderful 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 1 (29:55):
And if maya story has given you a moment of
moral elevation, remember that you can choose to become an
Adrian too. You can do that by joining me and
dozens 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 Lab. That's
GiveDirectly dot org slash happiness Lab. It's time for a break,
(30:18):
but when we return, I'll get to share my own
story of the power of giving and how four words
that I quickly scribbled nearly twenty years ago said a
little girl on the path to becoming an aerospace engineer.
The Happiness Lab will be right back. Welcome back to
(30:41):
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 4 (30:59):
So in two thousand and eight. I was six years old.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
This is Avery Miller, and.
Speaker 9 (31:06):
I didn't know too much, you know, about the world,
but I knew that I wanted to be an astronaut
because I'd read books about them, I'd seen them on
TIV and my parents were very encouraging of all of that.
And my mom realized there was an event called World
Science Festival.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
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 9 (31:43):
So we went to the festival and there's a lot
of really cool outside stuff and you know, the typical
kid activities.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
But my mom was like, you know, I think.
Speaker 9 (31:51):
Avery would really love going to some talks, which an
insane thing to think about a six year old, but
that's my mom.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
So we went to quite a few talks, but I
think there were mostly men, so not really role models.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
That's when Avery stumbled on a panel that would change
her life forever. It was called Cool Jobs, 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 10 (32:26):
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 allarim, welcome for doctor Lori Santos.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
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 cosmative abilities of monkeys.
(33:03):
Back in two thousand and eight, I was asked to
talk about that primate work on the Cool Jobs panel
at the World Science 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 like Avery.
Speaker 9 (33:26):
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, let's go.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
Talk to her.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Avery's mom wasn't the only audience member to have that ideas.
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 9 (34:04):
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 because you know, growing
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 4 (34:22):
I have it here if you want to see it.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Oh my gosh, can you hold it up?
Speaker 4 (34:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Oh my gosh, we'ld like go monkey drawing.
Speaker 7 (34:28):
That's yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Exit.
Speaker 9 (34:30):
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 a scientist
thinks I can be a scientist. We framed it and
then I put it on my desk, and then I
guess I never moved it off my desk.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
I mean, like I look at it all the time.
Speaker 9 (34:53):
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 4 (35:04):
So it was just this constant little reminder that like,
I could do that.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
I mean, it's so funny. I signed lots of things
for lots of folks, and just the idea that they
would keep them is really cool. But also does that
it turned into an inspiration for you.
Speaker 9 (35:16):
I failed a class, almost failed a class in the
eighth grade and it was science, and I was like,
that means I.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
Can't do it, because if everyone looks at.
Speaker 9 (35:27):
You as the science kid and you're going around failing
science classes, it's hard. 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 can do it when you didn't even
know that was an option is perhaps more meaningful. So, yeah,
(35:50):
it was a big deal to me then. It's still
a 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 1 (36:08):
That's amazing. Sounds like you wound up going to college.
Did you end up going to MIT or what happened?
Speaker 9 (36:13):
Yeah, 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 1 (36:25):
Wait, like, mind boggling, Like you became an aerospace engineer.
That's so cool. 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
(36:45):
you for being an inspiration in six year old me's life.
I know that you carved the way for this field
to be one that women like me can thrive in.
I mean, wow. I had 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
(37:08):
scientists too.
Speaker 9 (37:09):
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.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
Was a little kid.
Speaker 9 (37:17):
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 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
(37:39):
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 (37:51):
Look at you? 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 9 (38:01):
The fact that someone who speaks to John Green thinks
I'm cool is possibly the coolest thing ever.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
I'm sure you 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,
(38:29):
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 9 (38:36):
And also the fact that I can reconnect with you
after twenty years and it still be something meaningful.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
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 4 (38:49):
I'm hoping to go back to school eventually.
Speaker 9 (38:52):
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.
Speaker 4 (39:01):
There's no way I can keep answering problems.
Speaker 9 (39:03):
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 1 (39:13):
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 4 (39:19):
Me as well, which is a great thing.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
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
(39:45):
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 2 (40:01):
I'd be delighted.
Speaker 11 (40:03):
My name is Katie Milkman, and I am a professor
at the Wharton School, host of the podcast Choiceology, and
author of the book How to Change.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
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
(40:30):
not put it into practice. This is the kind of
thing that you study, right, Yes, although I.
Speaker 11 (40:35):
Wouldn't say our minds are stupid. 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 4 (40:47):
So, like, the mind is amazing.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
I don't want to denigrate the model. Okay, yeah, no,
nodice to the mind.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
Great.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
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. I think this is a spot where
we really get it wrong. Yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker 11 (41:04):
We don't anticipate how good it will feel to you know,
engage in conversations and game and 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 1 (41:17):
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.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
That's right.
Speaker 11 (41:30):
Yeah, follow through is 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
(41:51):
data from the University of Pennsylvania's 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
(42:12):
have an opportunity when the university asks would 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.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
So if the batch send happens to.
Speaker 11 (42:30):
Occur just a couple of weeks after you leave the hospital,
you're going to get it real quickly. 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
(42:52):
and gratitude and remembering how meaningful it 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 also presumably suggests that you're not
going to feel as good about making that reciprocal gesture
(43:15):
if your strong feelings have dissipated 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
(43:37):
and you want to make sure 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, whatever it is,
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
(43:58):
other domains is just that our motivation in general waxes
and wanes like over time.
Speaker 10 (44:03):
Right.
Speaker 11 (44:03):
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
more motivated to make a change in our lives. And
I think that's just part of a bigger process, Like
we don't walk around the world with like constant flat
states of.
Speaker 4 (44:18):
Emotion and motivation.
Speaker 11 (44:19):
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.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Happiness, because whenever we do it, 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 4 (44:47):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
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? Do they like, pause
the episode and just go do.
Speaker 4 (44:56):
A pos the episode?
Speaker 11 (44:57):
Do it right now, Do not wait? 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 1 (45:08):
Okay, we're going to do a pause, 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
(45:29):
hacks we can use if we're motivated right now, but
we can actually hit like send immediately.
Speaker 4 (45:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Absolutely.
Speaker 11 (45:35):
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 to follow through and choose a specific time.
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
(45:56):
me when you see me, partner, roommate, friend tomorrow if
I've followed through on my pledge to give to give directly.
We know that social accountability and making concrete plans with
reminders are two ways we can hold our few yourself
to account for the things we want to get done.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
And I especially love the social accountability suggestion because that
gives us a little bit of social connection and maybe,
just maybe that partner, friend, roommate might also donate to
give directly and get a little happiness boost themselves.
Speaker 11 (46:24):
I love that perfect Yes, ask them to both nag
you and to give themselves.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
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 11 (46:34):
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 1 (46:41):
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
(47:03):
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
(47:24):
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. Hello and welcome to a special edition of the
Happiness Lab podcast. I hope all my listeners who celebrate
had a happy Thanksgiving. But the day I really look
forward to each November is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. Forget
(00:35):
Black Friday and Cyber Monday, my holiday of choice is
Giving Tuesday. Giving Tuesday is the global holiday of charitable
giving that falls right in the midst of our shopping frenzy,
a day that's not about commerce but compassion. 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
(00:58):
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,
a nonprofit that takes your cash and gives it directly
to people in extreme poverty to spend as they see fit.
But this year we are going even bigger. We're bringing
(01:20):
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, and dozens more.
The campaign even has its own hashtag, Pods Fight Poverty.
Pods Fight Poverty is trying to raise a million dollars
(01:41):
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, let's GiveDirectly dot org slash happiness Lab.
If you're a fan of this show, you've probably already
heard about the great things GiB directly can do with
a small donation from a listener like you. Take the
(02:01):
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 GiB direct to tackle the
deadly disease tuberculosis.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
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 1 (02:28):
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
(02:49):
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
sicker and sicker. That is until she received the cash
donation we provided through gibdirectly. With that small amount of money,
(03:11):
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 life had been given a second chance. I have
hope again. Months later, I still think back to Margaret's story.
(03:31):
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 were 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 amazing fellow podcasters,
(03:54):
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 lying
minds often forget that a great way to treat ourselves
is to do a small bit of good for somebody else.
(04:15):
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.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Hi, my name's Tim Harford, and I am the host
of Cautionary Tales.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
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 3 (04:42):
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 part of the world. I was
in my mid twenties, and I was on edge because
you Cameroon was at the time rated as one of
the most corrupt countries in the world, and corrupt or not,
(05:05):
people there were often really desperate. As a tourist 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 had a
great time, was treated wonderfully by everybody I met, but
I never lost that feeling of you need to be careful.
(05:25):
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 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
(05:49):
zoom up behind us on a motorbike. Two guys on
one motorbike. I turned around, expecting some threat, and they
stopped right in front of me and one 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 bewildered. Why is this guy giving
(06:11):
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 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 have gone all the way down the road
looking for the first guy they see who looks British,
(06:34):
which is me. They even got my photo with my passport,
and the amazing thing was they handed it over and
then they just drove off. 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
(06:54):
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 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
(07:15):
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 expectations of the people of Cameroon,
and they're driven off into the sunset without even waiting
for a thank you.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
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 3 (07:37):
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 maybe we can turn this into cash somehow, or
(07:57):
even just maybe we can try and get a tip
out of this guy.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Or just left it on the ground, like oh, well,
you know, I don't know this guy.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Yeah, yeah, there's someone else's problem. Yeah, just ignored it.
But they didn't that story.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
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 that 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.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
All fine, yeah, sure we kick the economists.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
I mean, at least the standard economists have been telling
us for a long time that you know, we are
home economic as we are these selfish beings who are
going to go out.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
You know.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
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 benefits. Someone saw them do it and
that you know, now they kind of like praising them
and so on. But they wouldn't just do it, just
for the good of doing it well, I mean, let.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
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 for that money. It doesn't have to be
(09:12):
you could and I've 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
(09:32):
to make that 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 1 (09:51):
Are you surprised that we don't think of kind actions
as as valuable as impactful as they often are?
Speaker 3 (09:58):
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
(10:20):
behave kindly to each other. I mean, I am aware
of some research in psychology. All know this kind of
work better than me, Laurie, But we often failed 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 hand it into the police station. Yeah,
(10:40):
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
(11:00):
somebody else will behave.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
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
(11:23):
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 3 (11:39):
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
(12:01):
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
(12:23):
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
(12:46):
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 1 (12:59):
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 Give Directly or slash Happiness Lab. The next
podcaster to share a story on the power of giving
is an old friend of the show.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
First of all, it's great to see you again.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
A minute and hes yeah. Army veteran JR. Martinez was
badly wounded in Iraq when the humpy 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
(13:40):
as the host of the inspiring podcast Medal of Honor. Jr.
Is a big fan of giving back. 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 5 (13:58):
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 families. 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. And I was like, well, what are some
(14:19):
of the auction items? 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
(14:40):
of like, how much 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 sex hundred. That number has moved on. And
so I'm holding the next auction item, this quilt, and
I'm ready to move it along, and a lady raises
(15:02):
her hand that bitted on the dog and says, may
I say something? So we're like, of course, So she
comes up to the state. 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
there's no room for this sweet dog at our house.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
And she says, so we.
Speaker 5 (15:21):
Want to give them give him to j R. 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 1 (15:31):
And I'm in shock.
Speaker 5 (15:32):
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
(15:54):
I'm just forever like grateful And every time I would
see the couple 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 1 (16:13):
What was his name, Romeo?
Speaker 5 (16:16):
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, you know, And I was like, warrior, Yeah,
you're a warrior. Then I was like, what am I
going to call you for?
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Short war?
Speaker 5 (16:32):
And I was like, well, I don't know. 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
(16:54):
with him, just to be with the environment. 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 1 (17:02):
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 5 (17:09):
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? There were all these
reasons why I also couldn't have one, and then the
(17:29):
universe said, this is what you need and gave it
to me. And guess what I figured it out.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
I mean, I don't know how much folks ended up
spending on Romeo. It was 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 4 (17:53):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
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
(18:16):
impact that it had.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
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 has seen the first hand benefits of an
(18:38):
unexpectedly 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. Our goal
(19:00):
is 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.
I'm 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
(19:20):
do good for people in need.
Speaker 6 (19:22):
I made a.
Speaker 7 (19:22):
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 1 (19:34):
So I started doing it, and so how does it feel?
Speaker 7 (19:36):
So it is completely true that when you give something
to someone else you feel good.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Totally feels good.
Speaker 7 (19:44):
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 a cool idea. And so you know, it's not
(20:07):
a natural act just to hand money over people. It
hurts the tiny bit. So that also is a reassuring feeling.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
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 lattes or something silly.
Speaker 7 (20:22):
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.
Speaker 8 (20:35):
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,
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
(20:58):
an open way.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
So it opens up things a little bit. 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,
(21:20):
what is this money going to go to? Is it
going to go to something good or whatever? 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 gonna 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,
(21:40):
you don't have all this like yucky mistrust that comes
with like wondering what someone who's going to do with
the money. It's just like is a wonderful like cognitive
load reducer and like negative social contagion reducer. Correct. All correct.
Speaker 8 (21:54):
So we'll see if I persist in this.
Speaker 7 (21:56):
But this has been a little giving wrinkle in my life.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
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 a 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
(22:21):
to 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 6 (22:33):
Hey, I'm doctor Mayah Schunker and I'm the host of
A slight Change of Plans.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
And so, Maya, what's your story of unexpected benefits of kindness?
Speaker 6 (22:43):
My moment is actually one from elementary school.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
So we're going way back for this one.
Speaker 6 (22:48):
Yeah, we're going all the way back. I was bullied
a lot as a kid.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
And wait, really, I'm surprised by this. Somehow I didn't
know this about you.
Speaker 6 (22:56):
Oh my gosh, Oh my god, so many tears, so
much anxiety.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
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 6 (23:06):
Jacqueline Callen Lindsay it was a trio and Carly too.
But these were 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.
(23:28):
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 1 (23:41):
Was this like in the school yard, on the bus,
like where did this happen?
Speaker 4 (23:45):
Oh my god?
Speaker 6 (23:45):
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 cart and floating in the air. How funny.
(24:06):
And now there's a fork in the air, Like, oh
my god, I'm like the pretending I literally don't exist.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
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 6 (24:16):
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.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
The school bus.
Speaker 6 (24:38):
The school bus 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 1 (24:56):
Maya is awesome.
Speaker 6 (24:58):
I just remember those words in little kid Maya's brain
were transformative, Like I had to transcendent experience in that moment,
and I I just remember being so moved 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
(25:21):
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 Adrienne was
(25:41):
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
(26:02):
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.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
They were so.
Speaker 6 (26:22):
Mean, and I remember 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 a
reunion I gave this guy so much. I don't know
(26:43):
what a kosher word I can say 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
(27:04):
my heart that I could pay it forward like that
because I remember having been on the receiving end that
See I told you, Laurie, it had a happy ending.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Okay, that was good. I'm glad that at the ending
came up. It wasn't just like Maya getting tortured on
the bus.
Speaker 6 (27:15):
No.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
But I love this story because it shows like Adrian's
probably not sitting there thinking about like how she helped
this 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
(27:36):
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 6 (27:44):
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. So it could
be their kindness, or their courage, or their self sacrifice,
or their ability to forgive other people, any character trait
that you find really amazing and impressive that can lead
(28:04):
to this warm, fuzzy feeling in your chest that makes
you feel like, wow, humans are capable of extraordinary things.
But importantly, when you experience moral elevation, it doesn't just
feel good, It actually changes your brain. When you see
someone challenge your understanding of the world and about what
humans are capable of, it cracks open your own imagination
(28:26):
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 that someone went
out of their way to smile at me. When I'm
going on a walk, and these moments feel so good
(28:46):
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 1 (29:02):
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 guidnance
out there that we can find, and that seeing them
isn't just like witnessing something that's beautiful, it's also changing us.
Speaker 6 (29:15):
To exactly 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.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
Happening in the world.
Speaker 6 (29:37):
Is a wonderful 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 1 (29:55):
And if maya story has given you a moment of
moral elevation, remember that you can choose to become an
Adrian too. You can do that by joining me and
dozens 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 Lab. That's
GiveDirectly dot org slash happiness Lab. It's time for a break,
(30:18):
but when we return, I'll get to share my own
story of the power of giving and how four words
that I quickly scribbled nearly twenty years ago said a
little girl on the path to becoming an aerospace engineer.
The Happiness Lab will be right back. Welcome back to
(30:41):
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 4 (30:59):
So in two thousand and eight. I was six years old.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
This is Avery Miller, and.
Speaker 9 (31:06):
I didn't know too much, you know, about the world,
but I knew that I wanted to be an astronaut
because I'd read books about them, I'd seen them on
TIV and my parents were very encouraging of all of that.
And my mom realized there was an event called World
Science Festival.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
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 9 (31:43):
So we went to the festival and there's a lot
of really cool outside stuff and you know, the typical
kid activities.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
But my mom was like, you know, I think.
Speaker 9 (31:51):
Avery would really love going to some talks, which an
insane thing to think about a six year old, but
that's my mom.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
So we went to quite a few talks, but I
think there were mostly men, so not really role models.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
That's when Avery stumbled on a panel that would change
her life forever. It was called Cool Jobs, 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 10 (32:26):
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 allarim, welcome for doctor Lori Santos.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
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 cosmative abilities of monkeys.
(33:03):
Back in two thousand and eight, I was asked to
talk about that primate work on the Cool Jobs panel
at the World Science 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 like Avery.
Speaker 9 (33:26):
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, let's go.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
Talk to her.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Avery's mom wasn't the only audience member to have that ideas.
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 9 (34:04):
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 because you know, growing
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 4 (34:22):
I have it here if you want to see it.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Oh my gosh, can you hold it up?
Speaker 4 (34:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Oh my gosh, we'ld like go monkey drawing.
Speaker 7 (34:28):
That's yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Exit.
Speaker 9 (34:30):
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 a scientist
thinks I can be a scientist. We framed it and
then I put it on my desk, and then I
guess I never moved it off my desk.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
I mean, like I look at it all the time.
Speaker 9 (34:53):
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 4 (35:04):
So it was just this constant little reminder that like,
I could do that.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
I mean, it's so funny. I signed lots of things
for lots of folks, and just the idea that they
would keep them is really cool. But also does that
it turned into an inspiration for you.
Speaker 9 (35:16):
I failed a class, almost failed a class in the
eighth grade and it was science, and I was like,
that means I.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
Can't do it, because if everyone looks at.
Speaker 9 (35:27):
You as the science kid and you're going around failing
science classes, it's hard. 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 can do it when you didn't even
know that was an option is perhaps more meaningful. So, yeah,
(35:50):
it was a big deal to me then. It's still
a 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 1 (36:08):
That's amazing. Sounds like you wound up going to college.
Did you end up going to MIT or what happened?
Speaker 9 (36:13):
Yeah, 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 1 (36:25):
Wait, like, mind boggling, Like you became an aerospace engineer.
That's so cool. 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
(36:45):
you for being an inspiration in six year old me's life.
I know that you carved the way for this field
to be one that women like me can thrive in.
I mean, wow. I had 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
(37:08):
scientists too.
Speaker 9 (37:09):
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.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
Was a little kid.
Speaker 9 (37:17):
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 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
(37:39):
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 (37:51):
Look at you? 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 9 (38:01):
The fact that someone who speaks to John Green thinks
I'm cool is possibly the coolest thing ever.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
I'm sure you 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,
(38:29):
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 9 (38:36):
And also the fact that I can reconnect with you
after twenty years and it still be something meaningful.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
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 4 (38:49):
I'm hoping to go back to school eventually.
Speaker 9 (38:52):
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.
Speaker 4 (39:01):
There's no way I can keep answering problems.
Speaker 9 (39:03):
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 1 (39:13):
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 4 (39:19):
Me as well, which is a great thing.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
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
(39:45):
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 2 (40:01):
I'd be delighted.
Speaker 11 (40:03):
My name is Katie Milkman, and I am a professor
at the Wharton School, host of the podcast Choiceology, and
author of the book How to Change.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
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
(40:30):
not put it into practice. This is the kind of
thing that you study, right, Yes, although I.
Speaker 11 (40:35):
Wouldn't say our minds are stupid. 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 4 (40:47):
So, like, the mind is amazing.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
I don't want to denigrate the model. Okay, yeah, no,
nodice to the mind.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
Great.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
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. I think this is a spot where
we really get it wrong. Yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker 11 (41:04):
We don't anticipate how good it will feel to you know,
engage in conversations and game and 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 1 (41:17):
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.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
That's right.
Speaker 11 (41:30):
Yeah, follow through is 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
(41:51):
data from the University of Pennsylvania's 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
(42:12):
have an opportunity when the university asks would 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.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
So if the batch send happens to.
Speaker 11 (42:30):
Occur just a couple of weeks after you leave the hospital,
you're going to get it real quickly. 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
(42:52):
and gratitude and remembering how meaningful it 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 also presumably suggests that you're not
going to feel as good about making that reciprocal gesture
(43:15):
if your strong feelings have dissipated 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
(43:37):
and you want to make sure 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, whatever it is,
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
(43:58):
other domains is just that our motivation in general waxes
and wanes like over time.
Speaker 10 (44:03):
Right.
Speaker 11 (44:03):
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
more motivated to make a change in our lives. And
I think that's just part of a bigger process, Like
we don't walk around the world with like constant flat
states of.
Speaker 4 (44:18):
Emotion and motivation.
Speaker 11 (44:19):
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.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Happiness, because whenever we do it, 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 4 (44:47):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
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? Do they like, pause
the episode and just go do.
Speaker 4 (44:56):
A pos the episode?
Speaker 11 (44:57):
Do it right now, Do not wait? 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 1 (45:08):
Okay, we're going to do a pause, 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
(45:29):
hacks we can use if we're motivated right now, but
we can actually hit like send immediately.
Speaker 4 (45:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Absolutely.
Speaker 11 (45:35):
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 to follow through and choose a specific time.
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
(45:56):
me when you see me, partner, roommate, friend tomorrow if
I've followed through on my pledge to give to give directly.
We know that social accountability and making concrete plans with
reminders are two ways we can hold our few yourself
to account for the things we want to get done.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
And I especially love the social accountability suggestion because that
gives us a little bit of social connection and maybe,
just maybe that partner, friend, roommate might also donate to
give directly and get a little happiness boost themselves.
Speaker 11 (46:24):
I love that perfect Yes, ask them to both nag
you and to give themselves.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
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 11 (46:34):
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 1 (46:41):
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
(47:03):
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
(47:24):
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
Tim Harford
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