March 27, 2025 • 19 mins
The recent World Happiness Report highlights a striking link between social trust and voting preferences, revealing that individuals with low social trust are more prone to supporting right-wing political parties.
In this episode, I dive into this fascinating finding, which highlights how our personal dissatisfaction with life often translates into political choices that can influence societal outcomes.
It’s a wake-up call for all of us to reflect on our role in fostering social connections and trust within our communities. Despite our natural pessimism about kindness, studies show that people generally underestimate the empathy and support available around them.
We have the power to change this narrative—by actively nurturing trust and connection, we can improve not only our own well-being but also the fabric of our society.
Takeaways:
- The World Happiness Report indicates that low social trust correlates with voting for right-wing parties.
- Individuals with lower satisfaction in life tend to reject traditional political systems and seek alternatives.
- Social connection is vital for our happiness, health, and longevity, and we must prioritise it.
- Many young adults feel they lack social support, often underestimating the kindness of others around them.
- Our perceptions of others' empathy significantly influence our willingness to connect and engage socially.
- Rebuilding social trust requires individual responsibility in recognising the goodness in others and fostering connections.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Foreign this is Crappy toHappy and I am your host, Cass Dunn.
I'm a clinical and coachingpsychologist and mindfulness meditation
teacher and of course authorof the Crappy to Happy books.
In this show I bring youconversations with interesting, inspiring,
intelligent people who areexperts in their field and who have
(00:23):
something of value to sharethat will help you feel less crappy
and more happy.
Foreign hello and welcome toanother solo episode of Crappy to
Happy.
I've been toying with the ideaof calling these solo episodes something
(00:44):
different because solo episodejust doesn't really have a catchy
ring to it, does it?
I was thinking of, I don'tknow, coffee with Cass or something
like that because it feelslike just sitting down and having
a chat together and that way,yeah, it would just be kind of a
casual catch up.
Sometimes I feel like I needto come up with something like really
(01:07):
amazing and interesting andscientific to share with you when
what I really want to do islike talk about the severance finale
or, or adolescence orsomething I've been watching on tv.
Anyway, actually adolescencewould make a great topic for an episode.
So note to self, we shouldcome back to that one.
As it turns out though, I havejust been reading the World Happiness
Report and that's on brand andthat's kind of interesting.
(01:30):
So I wanted to share with yousomething that I was reading in the
2025 World Happiness Reportjust published and it's to do with
the link between satisfactionwith life, which is one measure of
happiness, and voting preferences.
So let's dive into thatbecause it is pretty interesting.
(01:53):
So here is what I discovered.
First up, when it comes to theway people vote, your degree of satisfaction
with life.
And you can measure that justby looking at a scale, on a scale
of 1 to 10, how satisfied youare with your life right now.
It's something that we do usein positive psychology, actually.
Satisfaction with Life scale.
(02:14):
People who are less satisfiedwith life are more likely to be kind
of anti party politics.
They're kind of dissatisfiedwith the system.
Basically.
They're disenfranchised withthe status quo.
They're more likely to voteindependently or to go to an extreme,
(02:36):
an extreme left or an extreme right.
So typically bipartisanpolitics is pretty centrist.
You know, it's like to theslightly right of center or slightly
left of center, but it'sfairly centrist.
And this is why people get so frustrated.
It's like they're just thesame, same, same.
(02:56):
So people who are dissatisfiedwith life tend to blame the institutions
for their level ofdissatisfaction, and therefore they
start to look for alternativesto the main political parties.
It's also been found thatpeople with lower, like basically
unhappy people, people who areless happy with their life, they
(03:18):
tend to be quite drawn toauthoritarian ideals.
Basically, they looking forsomeone to be strong and to take
control and to fix things.
But when people start going tothe extremes, what is the factor
that swings them towards theright or swings them towards the
(03:39):
left?
And interestingly, that factoris the level of social trust that
they have.
So people who are typicallytrusting have a high degree of social
trust.
This means interpersonal trust.
Trust your neighbors, trustyour fellow human beings, that they're
generally good people.
(04:00):
Those people, if they'reunhappy with life, but they have
a high level of social trust,they will go to far left kind of
ideologies.
People who have low levels ofsatisfaction with life, but they
have low levels of trust intheir fellow human being, they're
the ones swinging to the far right.
So when we talk about lowlevels of trust, the, the platforms
(04:24):
or the issues that tend to getfocused on are things like immigration.
People are coming to steal our jobs.
It's the immigrants coming andcausing all the problems.
Low levels of trust andsexuality and gender.
So I find that fascinatinggiven that the two things that Donald
Trump really campaigned hard on.
And to this day, if you comeacross a MAGA voter in any sort of
(04:48):
online thread, the first thingthey will say to you is, oh, what,
so you're okay with menplaying women's sports?
It's like, there's seriouslylike six trans women who might potentially
be looking at playing sport atsome competitive level.
But that's your issue.
Like it's ins.
To me, that is insane thatthat is the thing that they are holding
(05:08):
on so tightly to.
But whether gay people shouldbe entitled to be married, whether
gay people should be entitledto adopt children, People with high
levels of social trust arelike, oh, yeah, of course they should.
Low levels of social trust.
No, very much no to those things.
High levels of social trust.
(05:28):
Immigration is greatdiversity, contributing to the economy,
bringing all of this culturalopportunity and experience into our
culture.
Great.
Low levels of trust.
No, keep that away from here.
So if we go back to the 2016election, the people who had high
levels of satisfaction withlife, doing well financially, you
(05:49):
know, on the whole, happy withtheir lot in life, and also had high
levels of trust, they were theones who were satisfied with the
status quo.
So they were the Hillary,Hillary Clinton supporters.
Right party politics with left ideals.
The people who had the highlevels of Trust, but weren't happy
with the status quo.
(06:10):
They were the Bernie Sanders voters.
So they were going to the, tothe, the extreme.
You know, like this leftsocialist, really redistributing
wealth, taxing the wealthy totake care of the poor, looking for
an alternative to thebipartisan model.
But their level of trust inpeople shifted them to the left,
(06:30):
to Bernie.
They've got another optionavailable to them and that is to
not vote at all, to abstainfrom voting.
Now, obviously in Australiaand even in the UK we have compulsory
voting.
So I know that people canstill just do a donkey vote and opt
out of the whole thing, butwhere you can actually measure that
in the US is that the peoplewith the highest degree of dissatisfaction
(06:54):
and the lowest level of trust,they just abstain completely.
They just don't vote at all.
In Europe, what they see isthose are the people that, the very
low satisfaction and the verylow trust.
They're the people who will gofor the far right.
And this idea, theseabstainers, these people who just
opt out completely.
Like there's a kind of aprofile of those people that they
(07:17):
tend to be the most socially disconnected.
They tend to be the people whoare really not optimistic about the
future, much more solitary inboth in life and at work, don't have
a really strong social network.
And they have a very.
The abstainers have a veryspecific distrust of institutions.
(07:37):
You know, courts, police, government.
And over time it has been this.
The stats indicate that overtime that level of trust in institutions
has been deteriorating.
What I find interesting aboutthis too is that over time what has
happened is that while theremight be just as many people unhappy
with life, whichinterestingly, despite the fact that
(08:01):
globally we have enjoyed themost prosperous, most safe period
Since World War II, people arereally generally unhappy with life,
dissatisfied with life.
But while the levels ofdissatisfaction may remain consistent,
(08:21):
the level of trust, socialtrust, has declined.
People are more mistrusting oftheir neighbors, their friends, their,
their other people in theircommunity, even their own family
members.
And there's this kind of shifttowards the appeal of far right ideologies.
And that's what we're seeing.
(08:43):
That's what we're seeing allaround the world.
What's causing that, likewhat's causing this erosion of trust
in our fellow human beings?
Is it to do with social mediaand the polarization that that is
creating?
Is it to do with justtechnology generally and the fact
(09:03):
that we don't talk to eachother face to face anymore, that
we're not, we don't havecommunity like we used to, that we
tend to be more isolated.
I think we know that.
I think we're seeing that anyway.
Anyway.
So what this led me to when Ifound that all quite fascinating,
what it tells me is that orthe takeaway is, well, what do we
do about improving oursatisfaction with life?
(09:25):
But more to the point, what dowe do about improving our degree
of trust?
Social connection is thesingle biggest predictor.
The quality of our socialconnections is the single biggest
predictor of our longevity ofour health.
Even while controlling forlifestyle choices, genetics, income,
(09:48):
like literally everything,social connection is what it's about.
We need to be investing in oursocial connection if we are really
interested in living a long,healthy, happy life.
That is the major thing.
It's not the only thing, butit is the biggest thing that is going
to make a difference.
They often will do a surveywhere they will ask people, how many
(10:12):
people do you feel you cancount on if you are going through
a difficult time?
And in 2023, 19% of youngadults, so young adults is they counted
as 18 to 29, 19% of youngadults reported that they have no
one that they could count onfor social support.
But here's the thing about that.
(10:34):
It's not actually about thenumber of people that you could rely
on.
It's the number of people youthink you could rely on.
It's your perception of otherpeople's kindness and empathy that
makes the difference to yourwell being.
When you perceive other peopleto be kind and you perceive other
(10:56):
people to be, to have empathyand to be benevolent, then that increases
your level of trust and yourlevel of satisfaction with life.
So I think this is soimportant and clearly this is not
just important for your ownwell being.
This, this.
Have a look around the worldlike have a look at, around at what
(11:16):
is going on in the world and politically.
Then this comes back to eachof us taking responsibility for asking
ourselves how trusting am I ofother people?
How much do I see the good inother people?
When it comes to perceivedbenevolence, what they found with
these young people was thatactually 19% said that they didn't
have anybody that they couldrely on.
(11:38):
However, they were probablyunderestimating how many people they
had that they could rely on.
Because generally speaking,that's what we do.
We underestimate people'sempathy, we underestimate people's
kindness.
And when presented withevidence to the contrary, then that
immediately increases our wellbeing and our level of trust in other
(12:03):
people.
When you don't perceive otherpeople to be kind or you assume other
people won't care, you assumeother people wouldn't be there for
you if you needed them to be,then that contributes to your feeling
of loneliness and socialdisconnection and your lack of trust
in other people.
They did a study and theyfound that there's a really clear
gap.
So when they ask everybody,how much empathy do you think your
(12:26):
peers have?
I think this was like at auniversity or something.
Actually it was, it was atStanford when they asked them to
measure, like to, to givetheir opinion about how likely their
peers would be to have empathyif they were having a hard time.
The response was somethinglike, you know, 86%, 86% would be
(12:46):
empathetic, would be kind.
Then when they asked all ofthe, the peer group, how empathetic
would you be, how much empathywould you have if one of your peers
was suffering or struggling?
The actual percentage ofpeople who would have empathy was
more like 98%.
Like was really high.
So there's this gap.
(13:06):
It was a gap of about 12%, right?
The perception gap.
How much you think that therewould be, there would be empathy
or there would be kindness orsomebody willing to help you out
versus the actual amount ofpeople who would be willing to help
you out.
And when you perceive thatthere's not empathy, then that, that
means that you're less likelyto, to reach out and connect with
people.
(13:27):
You're less likely to putyourself into social situations,
you're less likely to reachout when you are struggling.
You're less likely to takerisks socially to try to make connections.
Like it impacts that itbecomes this self reinforcing process
because you opt out and thenthey, you have no people in your
life.
Like in a round and around we go.
So then what they did was theystarted putting signs up around the
(13:48):
university saying, do you knowthat your peers are really friendly
and they have empathy and theywant you to join in and why don't
you reach out to somebody fora coffee today?
Or why don't you make aconnection with somebody today?
And it actually increasedpeople's willingness and increased
the rate that, at which thosestudents would like actually put
themselves out there andconnect socially, go to an event.
(14:09):
They also did this thing wherethey just put nudges on their phone
like they sent them anotification saying oh hey, why don't
you pay somebody a compliment today?
Why don't you invite somebodyfor a coffee today?
And that also increased theirwillingness to reach out and connect
with somebody.
And then when they do that, soAgain, positive cycle, right?
You reach out and connect withsomebody, you have a positive experience,
(14:29):
builds your sense of communityand connection and your level of
trust in people.
We've got to be building trustback into society.
We've got to be connecting andrecognizing that people aren't all
out to get us like that.
People are generally good.
And I feel like the more we'regoing down this really extreme path,
(14:52):
this really polarized paththat the world seems to be on, then
the more that we're justincreasing that divide and lowering
those levels of trust in ourfellow human beings.
So while we are talking aboutempathy and kindness and being there
for other people, obviously inyour own social circle there can
(15:14):
be, we can all individuallytake more responsibility for reaching
out, for doing kind things,for making social connections with
others.
But we can also at a communitylevel, be engaging in pro social
behavior.
So pro social behavior isthings like volunteering, donating,
helping out.
And pro social behavior isproven to benefit both the person
(15:35):
on the receiving end of thatand the person doing the kind act,
the volunteering or the helping.
So if it's possible, maybeengaging in some pro social behavior
that's also going to increaseyour level of connection to your
community, increase yoursatisfaction with life, increase
your wellbeing, but have thisripple effect of flowing on an increasing
(15:59):
other people's well being andmaybe increasing other people's level
of trust and theirinterpersonal trust, their social
trust.
So I don't know about you, Ithought that was pretty interesting.
And having just come out of my30 days to a happier you, which is
the 30 day series that Icreated for the Beyond Happy podcast
(16:23):
subscribers, the people who'veupgraded to the paid version of Crappy
to Happy, you are most welcome.
I would love to see you there.
But within that 30 days, thewe talked about, some of it was about
kindness and giving and socialconnection and so many of these themes,
we don't pay enough attentionto them.
And I think we, we considerthem, when we do consider them, we
(16:46):
probably consider them fromour own very individual selfish reasons,
but not necessarily the widerimpact of that.
Like I personally find thatfascinating how that your level of
satisfaction with life, yourhappiness and your level of trust
in other people, maybe thatseems really obvious to some people,
but the fact that there'sresearch now that that points to
(17:08):
how that directly influencesyour voting preferences and as we
know, voting preferences canmassively impact the world that we
live in, for better or worse.
And right now, fucking worse,going by what's happening in the
US at the moment, and, andgenerally, like there's just this
rise in popularity of some ofthese really far right wing political
(17:30):
parties and people reallysubscribing to those kinds of ideologies,
which is a direct reflectionof people's low levels, not just
their low levels ofsatisfaction with the status quo.
Like I get that, I get thatpeople are dissatisfied with the
status quo, but low levels oftrust in their fellow human beings.
Like, can we just get back toseeing the good in each other and
(17:52):
doing what we can to buildthat trust and those connections
and to also be really wary ofour pessimism about kindness.
People are pessimistic about kindness.
They underestimate people's kindness.
They underestimate people'sempathy, underestimate people's benevolence.
People are good, people are kind.
(18:14):
If you think that they're not,it may just be your own cognitive
bias in your own mind.
It may not be based in any reality.
And so the more that we canfind examples to prove us wrong and
to rebuild that trust, thebetter for our well being, the better
for our happiness, the betterfor the world.
I'm going to leave you with that.
And before I go, one finalthing, the other thing that is happening
(18:35):
for my paid subscribers isthat we've got a Q and A, like a
private zoom call withMichelle McQuade, who, as you know,
she was on the pod a few weeksago and she talked about good girl
syndrome and good girlconditioning and how girls and women
are conditioned to down to,you know, be pleasers and perfectionists,
et cetera.
And she's really done a lot ofresearch into that and has got strategies
(18:57):
for unpacking that andovercoming that.
And so she has agreed to comeback for a private session, a Q and
a zoom call with my paid subscribers.
And if you would like to be inon that, you can subscribe at my
substack.
It's $10 for a month.
Even if you just subscribe fora month and it cost you 10 bucks
just to come to that session,it would probably be worthwhile.
It would also give you accessto that 30 day happiness series and
(19:20):
whatever else is happening inthe meantime for paid subscribers.
So just wanted to let you knowabout that in case it's of interest.
That's it from me.
I will be back next week foranother fabulous episode of Crappy
to Happy.
Foreign this is Crappy toHappy and I am your host, Cass Dunn.
I'm a clinical and coachingpsychologist and mindfulness meditation
teacher and of course authorof the Crappy to Happy books.
In this show I bring youconversations with interesting, inspiring,
intelligent people who areexperts in their field and who have
(00:23):
something of value to sharethat will help you feel less crappy
and more happy.
Foreign hello and welcome toanother solo episode of Crappy to
Happy.
I've been toying with the ideaof calling these solo episodes something
(00:44):
different because solo episodejust doesn't really have a catchy
ring to it, does it?
I was thinking of, I don'tknow, coffee with Cass or something
like that because it feelslike just sitting down and having
a chat together and that way,yeah, it would just be kind of a
casual catch up.
Sometimes I feel like I needto come up with something like really
(01:07):
amazing and interesting andscientific to share with you when
what I really want to do islike talk about the severance finale
or, or adolescence orsomething I've been watching on tv.
Anyway, actually adolescencewould make a great topic for an episode.
So note to self, we shouldcome back to that one.
As it turns out though, I havejust been reading the World Happiness
Report and that's on brand andthat's kind of interesting.
(01:30):
So I wanted to share with yousomething that I was reading in the
2025 World Happiness Reportjust published and it's to do with
the link between satisfactionwith life, which is one measure of
happiness, and voting preferences.
So let's dive into thatbecause it is pretty interesting.
(01:53):
So here is what I discovered.
First up, when it comes to theway people vote, your degree of satisfaction
with life.
And you can measure that justby looking at a scale, on a scale
of 1 to 10, how satisfied youare with your life right now.
It's something that we do usein positive psychology, actually.
Satisfaction with Life scale.
(02:14):
People who are less satisfiedwith life are more likely to be kind
of anti party politics.
They're kind of dissatisfiedwith the system.
Basically.
They're disenfranchised withthe status quo.
They're more likely to voteindependently or to go to an extreme,
(02:36):
an extreme left or an extreme right.
So typically bipartisanpolitics is pretty centrist.
You know, it's like to theslightly right of center or slightly
left of center, but it'sfairly centrist.
And this is why people get so frustrated.
It's like they're just thesame, same, same.
(02:56):
So people who are dissatisfiedwith life tend to blame the institutions
for their level ofdissatisfaction, and therefore they
start to look for alternativesto the main political parties.
It's also been found thatpeople with lower, like basically
unhappy people, people who areless happy with their life, they
(03:18):
tend to be quite drawn toauthoritarian ideals.
Basically, they looking forsomeone to be strong and to take
control and to fix things.
But when people start going tothe extremes, what is the factor
that swings them towards theright or swings them towards the
(03:39):
left?
And interestingly, that factoris the level of social trust that
they have.
So people who are typicallytrusting have a high degree of social
trust.
This means interpersonal trust.
Trust your neighbors, trustyour fellow human beings, that they're
generally good people.
(04:00):
Those people, if they'reunhappy with life, but they have
a high level of social trust,they will go to far left kind of
ideologies.
People who have low levels ofsatisfaction with life, but they
have low levels of trust intheir fellow human being, they're
the ones swinging to the far right.
So when we talk about lowlevels of trust, the, the platforms
(04:24):
or the issues that tend to getfocused on are things like immigration.
People are coming to steal our jobs.
It's the immigrants coming andcausing all the problems.
Low levels of trust andsexuality and gender.
So I find that fascinatinggiven that the two things that Donald
Trump really campaigned hard on.
And to this day, if you comeacross a MAGA voter in any sort of
(04:48):
online thread, the first thingthey will say to you is, oh, what,
so you're okay with menplaying women's sports?
It's like, there's seriouslylike six trans women who might potentially
be looking at playing sport atsome competitive level.
But that's your issue.
Like it's ins.
To me, that is insane thatthat is the thing that they are holding
(05:08):
on so tightly to.
But whether gay people shouldbe entitled to be married, whether
gay people should be entitledto adopt children, People with high
levels of social trust arelike, oh, yeah, of course they should.
Low levels of social trust.
No, very much no to those things.
High levels of social trust.
(05:28):
Immigration is greatdiversity, contributing to the economy,
bringing all of this culturalopportunity and experience into our
culture.
Great.
Low levels of trust.
No, keep that away from here.
So if we go back to the 2016election, the people who had high
levels of satisfaction withlife, doing well financially, you
(05:49):
know, on the whole, happy withtheir lot in life, and also had high
levels of trust, they were theones who were satisfied with the
status quo.
So they were the Hillary,Hillary Clinton supporters.
Right party politics with left ideals.
The people who had the highlevels of Trust, but weren't happy
with the status quo.
(06:10):
They were the Bernie Sanders voters.
So they were going to the, tothe, the extreme.
You know, like this leftsocialist, really redistributing
wealth, taxing the wealthy totake care of the poor, looking for
an alternative to thebipartisan model.
But their level of trust inpeople shifted them to the left,
(06:30):
to Bernie.
They've got another optionavailable to them and that is to
not vote at all, to abstainfrom voting.
Now, obviously in Australiaand even in the UK we have compulsory
voting.
So I know that people canstill just do a donkey vote and opt
out of the whole thing, butwhere you can actually measure that
in the US is that the peoplewith the highest degree of dissatisfaction
(06:54):
and the lowest level of trust,they just abstain completely.
They just don't vote at all.
In Europe, what they see isthose are the people that, the very
low satisfaction and the verylow trust.
They're the people who will gofor the far right.
And this idea, theseabstainers, these people who just
opt out completely.
Like there's a kind of aprofile of those people that they
(07:17):
tend to be the most socially disconnected.
They tend to be the people whoare really not optimistic about the
future, much more solitary inboth in life and at work, don't have
a really strong social network.
And they have a very.
The abstainers have a veryspecific distrust of institutions.
(07:37):
You know, courts, police, government.
And over time it has been this.
The stats indicate that overtime that level of trust in institutions
has been deteriorating.
What I find interesting aboutthis too is that over time what has
happened is that while theremight be just as many people unhappy
with life, whichinterestingly, despite the fact that
(08:01):
globally we have enjoyed themost prosperous, most safe period
Since World War II, people arereally generally unhappy with life,
dissatisfied with life.
But while the levels ofdissatisfaction may remain consistent,
(08:21):
the level of trust, socialtrust, has declined.
People are more mistrusting oftheir neighbors, their friends, their,
their other people in theircommunity, even their own family
members.
And there's this kind of shifttowards the appeal of far right ideologies.
And that's what we're seeing.
(08:43):
That's what we're seeing allaround the world.
What's causing that, likewhat's causing this erosion of trust
in our fellow human beings?
Is it to do with social mediaand the polarization that that is
creating?
Is it to do with justtechnology generally and the fact
(09:03):
that we don't talk to eachother face to face anymore, that
we're not, we don't havecommunity like we used to, that we
tend to be more isolated.
I think we know that.
I think we're seeing that anyway.
Anyway.
So what this led me to when Ifound that all quite fascinating,
what it tells me is that orthe takeaway is, well, what do we
do about improving oursatisfaction with life?
(09:25):
But more to the point, what dowe do about improving our degree
of trust?
Social connection is thesingle biggest predictor.
The quality of our socialconnections is the single biggest
predictor of our longevity ofour health.
Even while controlling forlifestyle choices, genetics, income,
(09:48):
like literally everything,social connection is what it's about.
We need to be investing in oursocial connection if we are really
interested in living a long,healthy, happy life.
That is the major thing.
It's not the only thing, butit is the biggest thing that is going
to make a difference.
They often will do a surveywhere they will ask people, how many
(10:12):
people do you feel you cancount on if you are going through
a difficult time?
And in 2023, 19% of youngadults, so young adults is they counted
as 18 to 29, 19% of youngadults reported that they have no
one that they could count onfor social support.
But here's the thing about that.
(10:34):
It's not actually about thenumber of people that you could rely
on.
It's the number of people youthink you could rely on.
It's your perception of otherpeople's kindness and empathy that
makes the difference to yourwell being.
When you perceive other peopleto be kind and you perceive other
(10:56):
people to be, to have empathyand to be benevolent, then that increases
your level of trust and yourlevel of satisfaction with life.
So I think this is soimportant and clearly this is not
just important for your ownwell being.
This, this.
Have a look around the worldlike have a look at, around at what
(11:16):
is going on in the world and politically.
Then this comes back to eachof us taking responsibility for asking
ourselves how trusting am I ofother people?
How much do I see the good inother people?
When it comes to perceivedbenevolence, what they found with
these young people was thatactually 19% said that they didn't
have anybody that they couldrely on.
(11:38):
However, they were probablyunderestimating how many people they
had that they could rely on.
Because generally speaking,that's what we do.
We underestimate people'sempathy, we underestimate people's
kindness.
And when presented withevidence to the contrary, then that
immediately increases our wellbeing and our level of trust in other
(12:03):
people.
When you don't perceive otherpeople to be kind or you assume other
people won't care, you assumeother people wouldn't be there for
you if you needed them to be,then that contributes to your feeling
of loneliness and socialdisconnection and your lack of trust
in other people.
They did a study and theyfound that there's a really clear
gap.
So when they ask everybody,how much empathy do you think your
(12:26):
peers have?
I think this was like at auniversity or something.
Actually it was, it was atStanford when they asked them to
measure, like to, to givetheir opinion about how likely their
peers would be to have empathyif they were having a hard time.
The response was somethinglike, you know, 86%, 86% would be
(12:46):
empathetic, would be kind.
Then when they asked all ofthe, the peer group, how empathetic
would you be, how much empathywould you have if one of your peers
was suffering or struggling?
The actual percentage ofpeople who would have empathy was
more like 98%.
Like was really high.
So there's this gap.
(13:06):
It was a gap of about 12%, right?
The perception gap.
How much you think that therewould be, there would be empathy
or there would be kindness orsomebody willing to help you out
versus the actual amount ofpeople who would be willing to help
you out.
And when you perceive thatthere's not empathy, then that, that
means that you're less likelyto, to reach out and connect with
people.
(13:27):
You're less likely to putyourself into social situations,
you're less likely to reachout when you are struggling.
You're less likely to takerisks socially to try to make connections.
Like it impacts that itbecomes this self reinforcing process
because you opt out and thenthey, you have no people in your
life.
Like in a round and around we go.
So then what they did was theystarted putting signs up around the
(13:48):
university saying, do you knowthat your peers are really friendly
and they have empathy and theywant you to join in and why don't
you reach out to somebody fora coffee today?
Or why don't you make aconnection with somebody today?
And it actually increasedpeople's willingness and increased
the rate that, at which thosestudents would like actually put
themselves out there andconnect socially, go to an event.
(14:09):
They also did this thing wherethey just put nudges on their phone
like they sent them anotification saying oh hey, why don't
you pay somebody a compliment today?
Why don't you invite somebodyfor a coffee today?
And that also increased theirwillingness to reach out and connect
with somebody.
And then when they do that, soAgain, positive cycle, right?
You reach out and connect withsomebody, you have a positive experience,
(14:29):
builds your sense of communityand connection and your level of
trust in people.
We've got to be building trustback into society.
We've got to be connecting andrecognizing that people aren't all
out to get us like that.
People are generally good.
And I feel like the more we'regoing down this really extreme path,
(14:52):
this really polarized paththat the world seems to be on, then
the more that we're justincreasing that divide and lowering
those levels of trust in ourfellow human beings.
So while we are talking aboutempathy and kindness and being there
for other people, obviously inyour own social circle there can
(15:14):
be, we can all individuallytake more responsibility for reaching
out, for doing kind things,for making social connections with
others.
But we can also at a communitylevel, be engaging in pro social
behavior.
So pro social behavior isthings like volunteering, donating,
helping out.
And pro social behavior isproven to benefit both the person
(15:35):
on the receiving end of thatand the person doing the kind act,
the volunteering or the helping.
So if it's possible, maybeengaging in some pro social behavior
that's also going to increaseyour level of connection to your
community, increase yoursatisfaction with life, increase
your wellbeing, but have thisripple effect of flowing on an increasing
(15:59):
other people's well being andmaybe increasing other people's level
of trust and theirinterpersonal trust, their social
trust.
So I don't know about you, Ithought that was pretty interesting.
And having just come out of my30 days to a happier you, which is
the 30 day series that Icreated for the Beyond Happy podcast
(16:23):
subscribers, the people who'veupgraded to the paid version of Crappy
to Happy, you are most welcome.
I would love to see you there.
But within that 30 days, thewe talked about, some of it was about
kindness and giving and socialconnection and so many of these themes,
we don't pay enough attentionto them.
And I think we, we considerthem, when we do consider them, we
(16:46):
probably consider them fromour own very individual selfish reasons,
but not necessarily the widerimpact of that.
Like I personally find thatfascinating how that your level of
satisfaction with life, yourhappiness and your level of trust
in other people, maybe thatseems really obvious to some people,
but the fact that there'sresearch now that that points to
(17:08):
how that directly influencesyour voting preferences and as we
know, voting preferences canmassively impact the world that we
live in, for better or worse.
And right now, fucking worse,going by what's happening in the
US at the moment, and, andgenerally, like there's just this
rise in popularity of some ofthese really far right wing political
(17:30):
parties and people reallysubscribing to those kinds of ideologies,
which is a direct reflectionof people's low levels, not just
their low levels ofsatisfaction with the status quo.
Like I get that, I get thatpeople are dissatisfied with the
status quo, but low levels oftrust in their fellow human beings.
Like, can we just get back toseeing the good in each other and
(17:52):
doing what we can to buildthat trust and those connections
and to also be really wary ofour pessimism about kindness.
People are pessimistic about kindness.
They underestimate people's kindness.
They underestimate people'sempathy, underestimate people's benevolence.
People are good, people are kind.
(18:14):
If you think that they're not,it may just be your own cognitive
bias in your own mind.
It may not be based in any reality.
And so the more that we canfind examples to prove us wrong and
to rebuild that trust, thebetter for our well being, the better
for our happiness, the betterfor the world.
I'm going to leave you with that.
And before I go, one finalthing, the other thing that is happening
(18:35):
for my paid subscribers isthat we've got a Q and A, like a
private zoom call withMichelle McQuade, who, as you know,
she was on the pod a few weeksago and she talked about good girl
syndrome and good girlconditioning and how girls and women
are conditioned to down to,you know, be pleasers and perfectionists,
et cetera.
And she's really done a lot ofresearch into that and has got strategies
(18:57):
for unpacking that andovercoming that.
And so she has agreed to comeback for a private session, a Q and
a zoom call with my paid subscribers.
And if you would like to be inon that, you can subscribe at my
substack.
It's $10 for a month.
Even if you just subscribe fora month and it cost you 10 bucks
just to come to that session,it would probably be worthwhile.
It would also give you accessto that 30 day happiness series and
(19:20):
whatever else is happening inthe meantime for paid subscribers.
So just wanted to let you knowabout that in case it's of interest.
That's it from me.
I will be back next week foranother fabulous episode of Crappy
to Happy.
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