Episode 1: What We Value, with Dr. Emily Falk

Today's guest is Dr. Emily Falk, a psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania. Emily studies how our brains decide what matters, and how aligning choices with our values can change our lives. Her new book is What We Value: The Neuroscience of Choice and Change.

Episode Transcript

Nancy (00:03):
Welcome to PurposeCast..
inspiring stories and science tohelp you live for what matters
most.
PurposeCast is hosted by Dr.
Vic Strecker..
world-renowned speaker andauthor..
professor and researcher at theUniversity of Michigan..
and creator of Purposeful byKumanu, a science-backed app for
living a healthier, happier,more purposeful life.

(00:25):
Today’s guest is Dr.
Emily Falk, a psychologist andneuroscientist at the University
of Pennsylvania.
Emily studies how our brainsdecide what matters, and how
aligning choices with our valuescan change our lives.

Her new book is What We Value: The Neuroscience of Choice and (00:38):
undefined
Change.
And now—Dr.
Vic Strecker.
Emily, oh my goodness.
I so appreciate you being on ourPurposeCast.
I've known Emily since she wasan assistant professor at the
University of Michigan.
We were so lucky to have herstart working in our Health

(00:59):
Communications researchlaboratory and really added a
whole dimension to ourlaboratory and helped us so
much, especially on theneuroscience side.
Emily's a psychologist andneuroscientist and just created
an entirely different way ofthinking about communication and
interactions around behaviorchange, wellness, wellbeing.

(01:23):
So Emily, I just want to thankyou so much for being here.
Thanks Vic.
It's so nice to be here and itwas so wonderful to start off my
professor career with you as acolleague and friend and mentor.
Well, what's great is that westill are able to work together,
with you and with many of yourcolleagues.
You have been such an amazingresearcher now bringing in so

(01:46):
many postdoctoral researchers,doctoral researchers, doctoral
level.
You have trained so many peoplenow and you've just become a
very prominent entity in thefield of psychology and
neuroscience at the Universityof Pennsylvania.
So, we're really pleased to haveyou and you have just finished a

(02:07):
book.
Is that right?
Can you tell us more about thisbook?
I'd love to.
It's called"What We Value" andit's about how the brain makes
decisions and how we might alignthe kinds of decisions that we
make in our day-to-day with ourbigger picture goals and
aspirations.
This is gonna be an awesome bookbecause our values are super
important to us.
Obviously we talk about values alot in this PurposeCast.

(02:29):
We talk about how values, in myopinion, anyway, really start
generating purposes.
So if you think about almost ametaphor of our values being a
root system and tree is kind ofour purpose.
And you know, we may have thisinner core of the tree and
that's maybe what kind ofpurposes or aspirations do we

(02:50):
have as kids or as we'rebecoming young adults.
And then those concentric ringsover time may form new purposes,
but those values typically stayfairly consistent over certain
stages of our lives.
And then all of that, that treetrunk kind of relates to our

(03:10):
branches.
Maybe we could consider those,the goals that we have, the
behaviors that we engage in.
And so I'm very, very interestedin these roots.
Core values that we have andjust how we value in general.
And we talk a lot of, we'vetalked a lot about parts of the
brain in this PurposeCast,especially the ventral medial

(03:32):
prefrontal cortex, which I liketo call the guru brain'because I
think it's very so advanced.
It does amazing things.
And you're like maybe one of theworld's experts on this part of
the brain right here.
Tell us a little bit about howyou think about values.
I think that the kinds of valuesthat you're describing sometimes

(03:53):
I think of as like"Big V"values, the things that guide
the way that we live our life,maybe our highest sense of self
or purpose.
There are lots of other thingsthat come to mind for people
also when they hear the wordvalue, maybe.
Mm-hmm.
Getting a good deal at the storeor thinking about how much
something costs in terms ofmoney.
So an economist would meansomething potentially very

(04:14):
different than a philosopherthinking about values.
And as a neuroscientist, when Isay"value," often what I mean is
something even a little bitdifferent, but I think even more
general, which is what happensin our brains when we're making
choices, which we do all day,every day, and when we're
guessing about how rewardingsomething might be for me,

(04:35):
right?
How rewarding might it be tospend my time, putting in a
little extra time at work orgoing home and hanging out with
my kids, or should I eat this,you know, delicious salad or
this delicious ice cream sundaeright now?
Right?
So these different kinds ofchoices actually get integrated
within the vented prefrontalcortex, and it can handle this

(04:56):
like incredibly wide range ofdifferent possibilities.
And so when I think about value,I think about that common value
scale that our brain oftenautomatically computes for us,
so that we can choose betweenthings that aren't necessarily
inherently comparable.
How and why do you think thispart of the brain that does

(05:18):
this, how and why do you thinkthat evolved?
Why, why is this an advantage tous and why do you think humans
seem to have more of this thanother, most other animals?
By weight?
Yeah.
I mean, many animals have areward system, right?
Mm-hmm.
So when you think about the waysthat lots of different kinds of
animals decide what they'regonna do.

(05:41):
There is this kind offundamentally basic shared
reward infrastructure.
And a lot of what we know aboutthe reward system early on came
from studies of lots of otherkinds of animals.
Mm-hmm.
And so I would say there's thosebasic kinds of principles of
choosing between differentthings based on expected value

(06:01):
and then learning from whathappens, right?
We have this amazing capacity tolearn from.
Mm-hmm.
Whether something was betterthan I thought it would be, or
worse than I thought it wouldbe.
But one of the things thathumans do a little bit
differently, we think, than mostother animals is.
Take other people'sperspectives, think about what
other people might be thinkingand feeling, project ourselves
into other places and space andtime.

(06:23):
Like we just have thisincredible imagination and
capacity for thinking aboutpossibilities that I think we
think is different than we thinkabout ourselves in the future
too.
We can think about our futureselves or our possible, yeah, we
can.
We can reflect on what happenedin the past and learn from our
experiences.
Potentially we can projectourselves into the future and

(06:44):
imagine.
Lots of different kinds ofthings, but there's all
different kinds of distanceactually, that the brain handles
in a fairly similar way.
So in terms of the ventedprefrontal cortex that you
mentioned, there's incrediblework that folks have done
looking at how me, who's righthere, right now?
Is kind of a, a priority.
And then as we move far away intime, like me at retirement,

(07:09):
might as well be a differentperson or another person who's
geographically far away.
Mm-hmm.
Or somebody who has reallydifferent identity than I have.
All of those different kinds ofdistance have a shared
underpinning in terms of howthey're processed in the, in the
vent medial prefrontal cortex.
I think that's, and it's allhappening right here.
Yeah, and I'm, well, it takeslots of different inputs and

(07:30):
then integrates them.
Mm-hmm.
But yeah, the vent medialprefrontal cortex is right
there, front and center in your,in your brain.
I, I'm just, I'm stunned thatthis little piece of sponge up
here does so much and, I'll justkeep pushing on this question,
like, why do we have so muchmore of this and how did we

(07:52):
evolve so much more of this whenother animals, even dolphins, I
don't think go well.
Okay.
I think I may change to fromsalmon to sardines for the next
year because I think in thefuture I'm gonna be a little
healthier by doing that.
But, but we seem to be able todo that and make those kind of
decisions.

(08:12):
I think there's a huge andincredible space of trying to
understand how animals think andfeel.
But in terms of the human sideof it, one really prominent
theory is that humans evolvedthe really large,
disproportionately largeprefrontal cortex that we have
in order to coordinate withother people.
Because we started having thesemore and more sophisticated

(08:34):
social groupings and trying tokeep track not only of what I
might eat in the future, but.
What kinds of things does Viclike to eat?
If we're gonna go out and we'regonna be with the entire you
know, Kunu staff.
Mm-hmm.
What kinds of things might beimportant for us to take into
consideration in terms ofpeople's relationships with each
other in terms of how we mightcollaborate in terms of lots of

(08:56):
different pieces of informationthat having a large.
Coordinated social society mightmake, well, I, so I find that
fascinating to maintain thistree metaphor.
You know, at the top are ourbehaviors and, you know, we may
decide to, rather than playingwith our kids or working, we may
decide to have.

(09:16):
An old fashioned, and then thatleads to a second old fashioned
or whatever, a cocktail.
And then, so in other words,we've gone branching into one
side of our behavior and then wenotice, wow, playing with the
kids or doing work is way on theother side of the tree, and it's
much harder to jump over there.
So.
There's a lot of thingsbehaviorally related to this,

(09:36):
and going back to your purpose,this trunk, which evolves out of
this root system, but underlyingthe root system is probably some
reservoir that feeds the rootsand feeds other trees roots as
well.
Let's just say there's areservoir of water that
nourishes this, and I know I'mreally getting off on this

(09:56):
metaphor.
Sorry, but, but imagine.
This reservoir we might callculture, or we may call it the
connective, you know reservoirof nourishment for all of these
groups, all of these trees,values.
And I think that's to, that'sreally fascinating.
And one might say.

(10:17):
You know, for some peoplereligion, that's part of it.
For others, cult, you know,general culture is part of it.
But I find that reallyfascinating.
And again, once you're gettingdown into that root system and
that reservoir, we're reallytalking about this part of the
brain that's very active.
Is that making sense?
The, the idea that culturalnorms are really powerful is

(10:38):
important, both because they cansometimes be invisible, like we
take them for granted, that whenwe watch television shows with
our kids or when we consume alldifferent kinds of media, that
those ideas.
Make their way into shaping ourdecisions and what we think is
valuable or adaptive to do.
But I think we can also noticethe other side of it, which is

(11:00):
just like we are influenced bythe cultural norms and values
that surround us.
We have a part to play ininfluencing other people.
Right.
Just like when our brain iscalculating value, it's also
taking into account theseestimates of social relevance of
what other people think and feeland what's happening around us.
What might be approved of, orwhat are other people doing that

(11:23):
might be useful for us to take anote on.
We are also part of those groupsfor other people, and so when we
think about trying to shift aculture or shift, as you were
saying, the reservoir that thatfolks are drinking from the
decisions that we makecontribute to that.
I love that.
Now once this part of the brainup here is active and somehow

(11:46):
you've like really engaged it insome way something that, that
your research has found in mycollaboration with you, we have
found is that there are otherparts of the brain that might
become kind of less engaged orless active.
And there are other parts thatalso get stimulated.
What are some of the things whenprefrontal cortex is very

(12:09):
active, what, what happens tothe other parts of the brain in
particular?
Yeah, it depends.
There's a very active area, asyou know, of network
neuroscience that says it'scrazy for us to think about
single brain regions inisolation.
Mm-hmm.
Because the brain reallyfunctions in these networked
ways that it's never the casethat, you know, one brain region

(12:32):
is.
On or off, we have differentsort of levels of activation
that fluctuate and so the, theventro medial prefrontal cortex
is part of what we call thedefault mode system in the
brain.
So often when we're letting ourminds wander, when we're staring
out the window and imaginingwhen we're thinking about the
future and the things that wemight want to do or fear might

(12:56):
happen, we're using our defaultmode system.
On the other hand other kinds ofthings that we might do with our
brains, like a math problem orcertain other kinds of reasoning
tend to be in opposition withthis more social or self-focused
or emotional kind of processing.

(13:17):
And so there's sometimes a tradeoff between these kinds of more
deliberative, like your, yourmathematical reasoning for
example, and that kind of socialthinking that comes from the
default mode system.
I'm not sure if that's what youhad in mind, but it is worth
keeping in mind how sort ofdynamic these processes are and

(13:39):
how one brain region can workwith all different other brain
regions and in differentconfigurations with different
kinds of results.
One connection that's beenpretty well documented, it seems
to me Emily, is the relationshipbetween the ventral medial
prefrontal cortex and thiscenter that relates to fear,
largely called the amygdala.

(14:01):
These two little almond shape,very ancient parts of our brain
that give us that shutter whenwe watch a horror movie or or
cutoff on the highway or.
Get upset.
And it seems to me, and youcorrect me if I'm off, but it
seems to me when this becomesmore active, this prefrontal
cortex, that we're somehowbetter able to manage our

(14:22):
emotions and control that, thatfear is, is that the case?
Is that how you see it?
I think it's a little morecomplicated than that.
Okay.
So certainly it's the case thatdifferent parts of our
prefrontal cortex can helpregulate our emotions.
Mm-hmm.
And can help regulate activationin places like the amygdala.

(14:42):
And that happens in a motivatedway.
So, you know, sometimes we thinkabout downregulating through,
say, reappraisal, where we thinkabout a situation in a new way
or a different way.
And then prefrontal cortex canhelp quiet regions like the
amygdala.
We can also do the opposite.
We can kind of ramp things up.
So we did a study where we wereinterested in anti binge

(15:03):
drinking messages, so publicservice announcements where we
wanted folks to be more mindfulof their binge drinking.
We know that it can be fun andsocial for college students to
have a drink sometimes, but itcan also result in really
harmful consequences.
And so in the, in thatsituation, we coached college

(15:24):
students to approach these,messages in different ways.
So sometimes we had them usetheir prefrontal cortex and
quiet their emotional responsesabout, you know, what are the
bad things that could happen andto think about how this could
happen to somebody else, but toreally distance themselves from
it.
And in other situations, we hadthem think about how to ramp up

(15:46):
those emotional responses.
Like what would happen if Iactually ended up in an
accident, or, you know, in thiskind of situation that would be
unpleasant to be in.
And in that situation theirpreferential cortex helped them
increase that activation and itmade the messages more
effective.
So interesting.
I think it can go both ways.
You know, when we think of oftentrying to suppress our emotions

(16:08):
or down-regulate our emotions,but if you go to a beautiful new
apartment, let's say that youwant to rent mm-hmm.
And you're really, you fall inlove with the bay window.
But then, you know, you mightwant to also negotiate for a
better price.
So you don't wanna sort of getswept up in that falling in love
with the place.

(16:28):
Or you might want to payattention to how the faucet
leaks or something like that,right?
Mm-hmm.
So there, there's lots ofdifferent situations where we
might wanna dial up or dial downour feelings about something.
And that still has some controlhere Yeah, it's, it's pretty.
I would say it's a, acomplicated thing.
So our lateral prefrontal cortexis probably the region most

(16:49):
commonly seen in these studiesof emotion regulation.
Mm-hmm.
Ventromedial prefrontal cortexis also involved in different
kinds of both emotional responseand emotion regulation.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, good, thank you.
Now I think it's about time.
In fact, we don't have a lot oftime left.
It flies by the way, as youknow, these half an hour

(17:11):
sessions go so fast.
Sadie, uh, Julie, do we have anyquestions that we should try to
respond to?
Yes.
Um, one question.
It's, uh, it's a bit of a twopart Emily.
It's in studying values in thisway.
How has this changed the waythat you approach decisions?
What advice or tips would yougive to others?

(17:33):
Love that question.
Love that question.
There are so many answers tothat and I've been grappling
with it in the book.
So, you know, on one on onehand, I think thinking about
values in this way, the way thatI was saying a neuroscientist
might think about value-baseddecision making.
It reveals how malleable ourchoices are.

(17:53):
Sometimes I think we have thisfeeling of being stuck, of
feeling like there's one rightanswer.
And instead we can think about,you know, well what are the
different inputs that I might beweighing right now?
And how might I kind of shine myflashlight around to see other
kinds of, of possibilities?
And so one of the ways that Ithink about this is when I start

(18:17):
to feel like the day to day ofmy life just feels like there's
like way too many things goingon and no, like, good answer.
I might try to like, take a stepback and think about, okay, well
what, what is actually the goalhere?
What's actually really importantto me in this moment?
And to realize that that mightbe different from my bigger

(18:39):
picture sense of, of who I am,things that have happened
before.
And so to, to really take thatbeat and say, we always have the
possibility of a moment to takea step back and, and consider
what the, the goal is.
And that is a beautifulstatement.
You know, some of the people Iwork with, a colleague of mine,

(19:01):
Eric Zimmerman, who I reallyenjoy working with in meetings
because he often will jump tothat.
Wait a sec.
You know, I'd like to jump rightin too fast.
And then he says, well, hold on,let's go back a little, one step
and think about what is the goalof all of this.
So what you're saying is veryrelevant in, in my own work.
Yeah.
Yeah, I would love to hear Vic,about how, how that manifests in

(19:24):
your meetings.
Like, one of the things that Ithink our team has tried to do a
lot more this year is beintentional about our gathering,
about how we're spending ourtime together.
And we opened our first labmeeting of the year, not just
with like a general brainstormof what are we gonna do
together, but what are the waysthat we might spend time
together that will increase ourpsychological safety together.

(19:45):
What are some of the ways thatwe'll increase our fun together?
What are some of the ways thatwe could increase our
intellectual curiosity together?
And my amazing lab managementteam came up with this exercise,
I think in part because they putso much thought into how do we
make it easy to bring togetherthese kind of bigger picture
goals or purpose with the waysthat we're spending our time on

(20:07):
a day-to-day basis?
So what does that exercise, whatare sometimes that Eric does
that for you?
Yeah.
Well, I'm interested, what doesthat exercise you engage in?
Oh, I was saying the, the veryfirst lab meeting of the
semester this was a, abrainstorming exercise, so we
had a, oh, I see.
A board where there were thesedifferent kinds of categories
and people came up with alldifferent kinds of possible
activities, but instead of justthe very broad prompt of like,

(20:31):
what social things should we dothis semester?
What I really loved about whatthe team came up with was that
it gave people a little bit morepurposeful focus on what is the
reason that we wanna spend thistime together?
Some of it is academic andintellectual.
Mm-hmm.
And making our science better.
And in order to do that well, wethink we have to be able to

(20:51):
connect and work together.
As humans, we have to.
Yeah.
Try to figure out ways to bringjoy into that work so that it's
fun so that we wanna keep doingit.
So that exercise was more of ajumping off point for other
ones.
Oh, cool.
Yeah.
For me, I try to focus on, youknow, bigger purposes.
So when we're buffeted by allsorts of chaos happening in a

(21:14):
small business, which itcertainly happens.
We're very interested in goingback, wait a second, what are we
trying to do?
We're ultimately trying to helpthe world become more
purposeful.
So let's keep the eyes on thatprize.
Yeah.
I see, I see a comment in thechat here, um, from Colleen who
says, if you haven't read, PriyaParker's, the Art of Gathering.

(21:35):
It's a wonderful read, and Ihave been reading it recently.
A friend recommended it to me inpart because of these
conversations we were having,and I agree.
It's been a fantastic book sofar.
So thanks for flagging that.
Wow.
Excellent.
Thank you.
Sadie, any other questions oranything that you're reading?
Emily?
That, that looks interesting.
Yeah, I, I would say, um, a bookthat I'm reading right now that

(21:57):
I'm really loving is calledBelow the Edge of Darkness, and
it's about bioluminescence inthe ocean.
And what I love about it is thatit really highlights the science
of how big and vast the worldis, how many possibilities there
are for life and for thinkingabout things that are really not

(22:19):
what I think about in my day today and the way our default mode
network works in the brain, weget stuck in these kind of
sinkholes of like the immediate.
What's in the space that I'm inhere, the small talk of the
weather, the things that have todo with things that I imagine to
be immediately relevant to meright here, right now.
And so I've been really enjoyingopportunities to kind of go

(22:40):
beyond that and expand.
So I love the, that book rightnow because it's, it's giving me
this whole insight into theocean.
Emily, you are a true scientist.
In that you're curious.
You're just curious abouteverything.
I love that about you.
That's, that's very special.
Thanks.

(23:00):
Any other questions before westart wrapping up?
Sadie?
There was a question aboutself-discipline and routine
playing into this, which wasactually a very interesting
contrast to what you had justsaid, Emily, about exploring
other possibilities and almostgetting yourself out of a
routine.
Yeah.
So what would you say to thatkind of that practice and that

(23:23):
balance?
Yeah, I think that the idea ofself-discipline and self-control
is such an interesting one andanother place where I think
understanding the brain'svaluation system that like how
the brain makes decisions, canhelp us make things feel easier,
right?
Sometimes we feel like we needto just like exert this

(23:44):
incredibly effortfulself-control of like the cookie
sitting in front of me and I'mjust gonna sit here and be
virtuous and, you know, not eatit, but there's a different way
that I think can, can be easier,which is to focus on the things
that are really pleasurableabout decisions that are also
consistent with our long-termgoals.

(24:05):
So thinking about like howcrunchy and delicious, a
cucumber might taste or howcreamy the hummus is just with
a, a healthy eating kind ofchoice.
And.
Also to think about all thedifferent ways that we can bring
that, that value closer.
So one way is to pay attentionto the things that are really

(24:29):
delicious and wonderful aboutthe choice that's also
consistent with our long-termgoals.
Another is what my colleagueKatie Milkman calls temptation
bundling.
So for example, listening to aamazing podcast or a book that
is really fun when you go to thegym and kind of holding it
hostage there.
Mm-hmm.

(24:49):
Or, you know, bringing yourfuture self closer by really
putting yourself in thatperson's shoes and thinking
about the ways that we mightthat we might do things that
are, that are good for thatfuture self.
So, there's some other reallycool research that shows that
often when people are trying toexert self-control or they're
trying to change their behavior,they go for the thing that they

(25:10):
think is like the best, the mostoptimal way to do it, when
they'd actually be better servedby choosing a way that is good
for moving towards the thingthat they wanna move towards and
also enjoyable.
So like going for a walk with afriend instead of trying to like
go to the the gym.
Hardest, most difficult.
Exercise or if we think about,you know, other kinds of goals

(25:34):
that we might have in our lifeabout spending time with people
that we care about, or achievingsomething at work, thinking
about the ways that we can dothat, that can also be fun and
enjoyable and bring us closer topeople we care about.
Emily, I so appreciate this, andjust by looking at all of the,
the comments, there's so manyand people are helping one

(25:56):
another.
So appreciate you, Emily, foreverything that you've done in
opening an entire space in mycareer that I didn't ever expect
to get into.
And you've been very patient inteaching a slow learner like
myself about, you know, how thebrain works.
And, it's really opened a, awhole new perspective on how I
think about change.

(26:18):
Can we have you back when yourbook comes out?
Love that.
Okay, then you can pick up thebook, show people the cover of
your first book and maybe we cango through some of it together
and maybe even extend the time alittle bit because there is so
much to talk about.
I really appreciate you love theresearch you're doing and all
the colleagues that you'vebrought in, Yuna Kang, and many,

(26:39):
many, many others.
That whose work I so appreciateand thank you everyone for being
part of this.
Anything you'd like to close outwith Emily to say to our, our
group?
I really appreciate the timethat everybody has spent with us
today, and thanks for having me.
Vic, when you were saying aboutthe work that we've done
together, one of the things thatI think about often is the way

(27:02):
that you have thought about andtalked about teaching.
So, you know, I'm, I'm guessingfolks on the Purpose Cast are
familiar with the incredibleresearch and translation work
you've done, but I remember aconversation we had where you
were talking about classroomteaching and about thinking
about each student as if theywere part of your family, as if
they were your child.
Yeah.
And that really resonated withme.

(27:23):
And so when I'm thinking aboutteaching on the traditional
classroom platform, but alsothese other kinds of spaces,
just thinking about each ofthese opportunities that we have
to connect with other people, Ithink is such a powerful
message.
And so just wanna express.
Thank you.
Gratitude.
Notice how much that comes backto you then.
It, it's, you know, I, I do itand now I get so much back from

(27:46):
those people.
So it's, it's just been awonderful reward for putting
that effort in.
Yeah.
You really do it well.
Emily, thank you.
So do you.
Take care.
Okay.
Best wishes to you and thanks toeveryone and can't wait to see
you soon.
Thanks for listening toPurposeCast.
If this conversation with Dr.

(28:08):
Emily Falk got you thinkingabout what you value most, and
how those values shape yourdaily choices, you’ll love
exploring the Purposeful byKumanu app.
Purposeful helps you connectyour values to real actions that
make life richer and morefulfilling.
You can clarify what mattersmost to you, set simple daily
intentions, build habits thatalign with your purpose, and

(28:30):
track how you’re growing overtime.
It’s a science-based...
personal way to feel happier,healthier, and more energized
and live every day with purpose.
Search Purposeful by Kumanu inyour app store or visit
Purposeful.io to learn more.
And be sure to followPurposeCast so you never miss an
episode.
See you soon! And staypurposeful.