00:00:03
So why is it the case
00:00:06
that when we are feeling
the most anxious, uncomfortable,
00:00:10
socially awkward versions of ourselves,
00:00:13
when our hearts are pounding
and our palms are sweating
00:00:16
and we feel like crawling out of our skin,
00:00:18
are we also the most nice
and often generic to the people around us?
00:00:24
I'm a social psychologist,
00:00:26
and I've been studying the science
of uncomfortable social interactions
00:00:29
for over 20 years.
00:00:30
So everything from new
roommate relationships,
00:00:34
negotiations,
00:00:35
upward feedback with your boss
to doctor patient-interactions,
00:00:39
those moments where you need
to break in and say,
00:00:42
"Yeah, for the last 20 minutes,
00:00:43
I actually have no idea
what you were talking about.
00:00:46
Can we maybe rewind a bit?"
00:00:47
And to study these things,
00:00:48
I look at three main outcomes.
00:00:51
First, I look at what people say,
the things we can control,
00:00:55
how friendly we are,
00:00:56
how much we complement one another,
00:00:59
how much we give gracious feedback.
00:01:01
Second, I look at the things
that are tougher for us to control,
00:01:05
our nonverbal behaviors,
things like fidgeting,
00:01:08
avoiding eye contact,
playing with our hair,
00:01:11
doodling even,
00:01:13
even our tone of voice.
00:01:14
And then I look at the things
that are impossible for us to control
00:01:18
our under-the-skin responses,
00:01:20
our physiology,
our cardiovascular reactivity,
00:01:24
things like blood pressure, heart rate,
00:01:26
these types of things
00:01:28
that we often don't even really
realize that we're feeling.
00:01:31
And the way I do this is by having
people come into the lab
00:01:34
and interact with each other
in a bunch of different settings,
00:01:37
and I have them negotiate with each other,
00:01:39
I have them get acquainted
with each other.
00:01:41
And often it's the case
that in these interactions,
00:01:44
people are required to give some form
of feedback to their partner.
00:01:49
Tell them honestly
what they're thinking or feeling,
00:01:51
come in with an offer for a negotiation,
00:01:53
tell them what they could have
done better next time.
00:01:56
And I think we all kind of know
what it feels like
00:01:58
to be in one of these studies.
00:02:00
You might not know what it would really
feel like to be in one of my studies.
00:02:03
There's a lot of equipment involved,
00:02:05
but we plug people up
to all of these things
00:02:07
to measure these under-the-skin responses.
00:02:09
We videotape them to capture
those behaviors that I just mentioned.
00:02:12
Now, to get us all into this mindset
of what it's like to feel awkward,
00:02:16
but maybe potentially a little bit nice,
00:02:18
I want you all to think
00:02:19
about what was the last
awkward interaction that you had.
00:02:24
OK, so keep this thought in your mind.
00:02:26
You can think about it for a few moments,
00:02:29
because in a couple minutes,
00:02:30
I'm actually going to randomly
call on someone based on your seat
00:02:34
to have you come up
00:02:35
and share your story
of what that moment felt like.
00:02:40
So before we do that,
00:02:41
I just want you all to kind of get a sense
of the typical pattern that we see
00:02:46
when people are engaging
in these interactions.
00:02:49
So we bring them into the lab,
00:02:51
we hook them up to all this equipment
00:02:53
and within moments,
within the first 20 seconds,
00:02:56
we start to see those stress
responses that I mentioned.
00:02:59
Their heart rate goes up,
their blood pressure increases.
00:03:02
It doesn't take much to get people
to start to feel anxious.
00:03:05
Next, we see it
in those nonverbal behaviors.
00:03:08
They start to fidget,
00:03:09
they avoid eye contact,
00:03:11
they pull their chair a couple inches away
00:03:13
from the person
who's sitting next to them,
00:03:15
in an effort just to get
a little bit more distance.
00:03:18
One of my favorite findings
is in doctor-patient interactions,
00:03:21
uncomfortable doctors,
00:03:22
they look down at the chart more,
00:03:24
or they look more at the computer screen
00:03:26
instead of making eye contact
with those patients.
00:03:29
So let's all return
to your awkward moment.
00:03:31
Does everyone have an awkward moment
in mind or thinking about one?
00:03:36
How many of you have
increases in your heart rate,
00:03:39
maybe your palms are sweating?
00:03:41
You can start to feel yourself
getting a little tingly
00:03:44
just with the mere thought
of being called upon today?
00:03:46
Hey, a few of you.
00:03:48
How many people would actually
be excited about that opportunity?
00:03:51
Not -- OK, same people.
00:03:52
(Laughter)
00:03:54
How many of you, if I did call on you,
would walk up here,
00:03:57
you would grin through
gritted teeth like this
00:04:01
and you would do it even though
you secretly hated me the whole time?
00:04:05
A few of you.
00:04:06
Don't worry, I'm not going
to actually do this.
00:04:08
This was all just a ruse
to teach you a lesson
00:04:11
which is, in uncomfortable
social interactions,
00:04:13
we often don't have
a social script of what to do.
00:04:16
Instead of telling people
what we really think, what we really feel,
00:04:20
we do the nice thing
that makes us incredibly uncomfortable.
00:04:25
Now one of my favorite findings
illustrating this effect
00:04:28
is in the context of negotiations.
00:04:30
I went to a major firm
and I brought people together
00:04:33
who were used to working with one another,
00:04:35
and we had them engage in a negotiation.
00:04:37
And at the end of it,
00:04:38
there was a winner and there was a loser.
00:04:40
So we said to the winner,
00:04:42
you know, this is really
a study about feedback.
00:04:44
And what we would like you to do
is give some constructive feedback
00:04:47
to the person who just lost.
00:04:49
What are some things
that they could do better next time?
00:04:52
What are some potential missteps?
00:04:53
How many of you think
that that's what they actually did,
00:04:56
they really followed our instructions?
00:04:58
OK, nobody.
00:04:59
[You] can see where this is going.
00:05:01
What we found is that even
when we're talking to someone
00:05:04
who just lost a negotiation to us,
we tend to bend over backwards.
00:05:08
We say things like,
00:05:10
"The way you made that really early offer
and didn't even ask for a counter,
00:05:13
that was amazing."
00:05:15
Or "It was so great how you didn't even
ask me anything about my side,
00:05:18
or what I was willing
to kind of, you know,
00:05:20
change on or be flexible on."
00:05:23
People layered on the compliments
00:05:25
to someone who they just
beat in a negotiation,
00:05:27
telling them how great they are.
00:05:29
So often these kinds of interactions
00:05:32
that take the form
of what I’ll call “anxious niceness,”
00:05:35
they involve a lot of compliments,
00:05:37
telling people what they do well
in a very general, non-specific way.
00:05:42
But a lot of my work actually looks
00:05:43
at what's it like to be
on the receiving end
00:05:47
of these types of interactions.
00:05:48
How do you feel when you interact
with someone over and over again
00:05:52
who's giving off
these kinds of brittle smiles?
00:05:57
These are typically
the kinds of facial expressions
00:05:59
that we actually see from people,
kind of sneering,
00:06:02
a little bit of side eye,
00:06:04
you know, arms crossed,
these types of things.
00:06:07
After a lifetime
of interacting with someone
00:06:09
who engages in anxious niceness,
00:06:11
what we find is that most people
on the receiving end
00:06:15
are racial minorities.
00:06:16
They are disadvantaged group members,
00:06:18
they are the type of people
00:06:20
that we are worried about appearing
prejudiced in front of,
00:06:23
and that anxiety is regulated
00:06:25
by being over-the-top nice to these folks.
00:06:28
We also find that these individuals
tend to be more synchronized to
00:06:32
and attentive to the how-we-say-it piece
00:06:35
than the what-we-say part.
00:06:37
So in one study, we had Black
and white Americans
00:06:40
interact with each other
in a cross-race interaction,
00:06:44
and we brought them into the lab
00:06:45
and we measured the physiology
of both partners.
00:06:48
What this allowed us to do
is capture the degree
00:06:50
to which people stress.
00:06:52
Those under-the-skin responses
can actually be caught by their partners.
00:06:56
And what we expected to find
00:06:58
is that the Black participants
would become more synchronized,
00:07:01
physiologically, to those whites.
00:07:03
They'd be more attuned to those,
kind of, nonverbal signals of anxiety.
00:07:07
And that's exactly what we found.
00:07:09
The more anxious those white
participants appeared,
00:07:12
the more they fidgeted,
the more they avoided eye contact,
00:07:14
even the higher their cortisol reactivity,
00:07:17
indicating some real deep,
kind of, under-the-skin stress response,
00:07:20
the more those Black participants
became linked up to them over time.
00:07:25
And I think this finding
is a little bit terrifying.
00:07:27
I think it means that we often think
of our own stress and our own physiology
00:07:31
as independent of the people
we interact with,
00:07:34
but our bodies are not always our own,
00:07:36
our physiology is not always our own.
00:07:38
And if you spend a lifetime interacting
with people who are so nice to you,
00:07:41
in an effort to control their anxiety,
00:07:43
you could potentially catch that stress.
00:07:45
It could negatively affect your bodies.
00:07:48
Now often what we find
is the type of feedback
00:07:51
that people are actually getting
00:07:52
isn't always super direct.
00:07:54
Sometimes it's a little bit patronizing.
00:07:57
So you could probably see
where I'm going with this.
00:07:59
Having over-the-top positive nice feedback
can harm your performance,
00:08:02
it can make it very difficult
for you to climb up,
00:08:05
difficult to kind of know where you stand,
what you should do better,
00:08:08
what you should stop doing,
00:08:09
but can also damage people in ways
that we often don't think about.
00:08:13
It can affect their reputations
outside of the interaction context.
00:08:18
So imagine the case
that you're one of these people
00:08:21
who loves giving
this general, nice feedback,
00:08:23
and you have someone who works for you,
00:08:25
and a recruiter calls,
maybe a past employee,
00:08:28
a recruiter calls you,
00:08:29
or someone asks you
for a letter of recommendation,
00:08:31
the kinds of things you're going
to put are going to be like,
00:08:34
"They're are real team player."
00:08:36
"They have great energy at work."
00:08:37
Generic things.
00:08:39
Yes, they're nice,
but they are not very telling
00:08:41
about what that person is really like.
00:08:43
And what we find is that the readers
of these things, at best,
00:08:46
think to themselves,
00:08:47
"Wow, they must not really know
this person at all.
00:08:50
I don't even know what this means."
00:08:51
At worst, they think to themselves,
00:08:53
"Well, they probably have
some real opinions.
00:08:55
They're just afraid to share them."
00:08:57
So these kinds of general
positive feedback
00:08:59
tend to actually harm people's reputation
when they're not backed up with real data.
00:09:05
So I think we have to then think
00:09:07
about what is the solution
to this problem.
00:09:09
Is it the case that we should all
just be meaner to each other
00:09:12
in an effort to be more direct?
00:09:14
I don't think that's the case at all.
00:09:15
I think there are some things we can do,
00:09:17
and I'm going to highlight three of them,
00:09:19
to improve the degree
to which we give clear,
00:09:21
consistent feedback to people,
00:09:23
particularly in the workplace.
00:09:24
So first we need to ask
ourselves the question,
00:09:27
how many people are on board
with this niceness culture, really?
00:09:31
There's a bit of a plural
ignorance that goes on
00:09:33
when we think about how nice
we are to people at work.
00:09:37
What I've found
is that for every one person
00:09:40
who loves this kind of general,
generic, nice feedback,
00:09:43
there's another person
who feels like it's lazy,
00:09:46
who feels like it's not helpful.
00:09:48
And I actually learned
this lesson the hard way
00:09:50
from one of my students recently.
00:09:52
She was giving a practice talk in my lab,
00:09:54
and she spent weeks
and weeks preparing it,
00:09:57
probably harder than anyone
else I'd ever seen
00:09:59
on preparing a talk like this.
00:10:01
And then she went and gave it,
and she came back and I said,
00:10:04
"How did the talk go? Did it go well?"
00:10:06
She said, "It was terrible.
It was horrible.
00:10:08
It was the worst experience."
00:10:10
I said, "Well, what happened?"
00:10:11
And she said, "All I got were
a bunch of 'Great jobs,'
00:10:14
‘That was interesting’
00:10:16
and then some clap emojis
from the people on Zoom.
00:10:18
Not a single person asked
a tough question," she said.
00:10:23
And I had this moment where I realized
00:10:25
that positive feedback
can come across as lazy feedback.
00:10:28
It can come across
as disengaged feedback.
00:10:31
And so if we want to change this culture,
00:10:33
we actually need to first do a quick pulse
00:10:36
of how many people are actually
more interested in doing the tougher,
00:10:40
constructive forms
of this type of feedback.
00:10:43
So you might be thinking to yourselves,
00:10:45
"Alright, I might be on board
with this idea of tough,
00:10:49
yet honest feedback.
00:10:51
So what should I do?
00:10:52
Should I go to people and say,
’Alright, do you want me to be ... nice
00:10:55
or honest and useful?'"
00:10:59
No, do not do this.
00:11:01
You will, by and large,
get a lot of people telling you,
00:11:03
"You know, I actually
just want to keep it nice.
00:11:06
That just feels a lot more
comfortable for me."
00:11:08
What I learned in my work
00:11:09
is that this process
I've been talking about,
00:11:11
about giving anxious, nice feedback,
00:11:13
is just as much
about the feedback receiver
00:11:15
as it is about the feedback giver.
00:11:17
People get into a bit
of a dance with each other.
00:11:20
I give you nice feedback,
you kind of know it's BS,
00:11:23
but you smile and say thank you
and then, you know, go on your way.
00:11:27
It takes a lot to break
that interpersonal cycle.
00:11:31
And to do that,
00:11:32
we have to think
about how we actually want
00:11:34
to frame our feedback to other people.
00:11:36
So instead of asking people,
00:11:38
"Should I be nice or honest and useful?"
00:11:41
What I like to do is ask people,
00:11:43
"Can I give you feedback
on a couple dimensions?"
00:11:46
Can we think about feedback
as general versus specific?
00:11:49
Another dimension would be,
00:11:51
can we think about things
that you're doing well
00:11:53
you should keep doing
00:11:54
versus things that "please stop."
00:11:56
And I'll get in a moment
00:11:58
to how we can actually frame
that form of negative feedback.
00:12:01
So I think a lot of us
are actually pretty decent
00:12:04
at the positive general feedback, right?
00:12:07
"I love how timely you are."
00:12:10
But what does that mean?
00:12:11
It could mean that you're
on time for meetings,
00:12:13
it could mean that you turn
your work in on time,
00:12:16
it could mean it in a very global way of,
00:12:18
"You sure managed to do
a lot in five years."
00:12:20
Or it could mean something so specific,
00:12:22
like, “It’s so helpful that you send in
your reports by 5 pm,”
00:12:25
but I don't really want to comment
00:12:26
on all those other kinds
of forms of being timely.
00:12:29
And when we do the kind of general
feedback that is negative,
00:12:33
the "please stop,"
we need it to be specific.
00:12:37
So kind of, one of the more common forms
of general negative feedback people get
00:12:41
is "You don't take
enough initiative here."
00:12:43
How many of you have ever been told,
“Please take some more initiative”?
00:12:46
I think most of us at some point
in our lives have experienced this.
00:12:50
What does that mean?
00:12:51
Does it mean I should speak up
more in meetings?
00:12:53
Does it mean I should be
quicker on my email?
00:12:55
Does it mean I should do your job
without complaining about doing your job,
00:12:59
which is often what it actually means?
00:13:01
We have to break it down
into the specifics,
00:13:03
and that could include things like,
00:13:05
"Don't wait for Tom to ask
if you found any errors
00:13:07
before you say,
'Tom, I found some errors.'"
00:13:10
Now an important piece here
is what people should do instead.
00:13:14
Often if we get to the stage
00:13:16
where we're comfortable
enough telling people,
00:13:18
“I have a specific, critical, negative
thing I want to tell you,” --
00:13:22
“Please stop interrupting people,”
00:13:24
you know, not telling Tom
about the errors,
00:13:27
showing up five minutes late with coffee
00:13:29
so I know what you were doing
during those five minutes --
00:13:32
we don’t tend to replace them
with anything,
00:13:34
but we know from our personal lives
that replacing negative critical,
00:13:38
"please stop" behaviors
is absolutely essential.
00:13:41
So I want to take you out
of the workplace for a moment.
00:13:44
And we're going to go to the bedroom.
00:13:45
Yes, I said we're going to the bedroom.
00:13:47
So imagine it's the case that you just
had sex with someone for the first time.
00:13:51
OK, we're all there, we've done
a lot of mentalizing today.
00:13:55
And you turn to the person and you say,
00:13:57
"Those last three things
you just did back there,
00:14:00
no good.
00:14:01
They're all bad.
00:14:02
Didn't like any of them."
00:14:04
They're going to look at you in shock
and surprise and say,
00:14:06
"Well, what should I do instead," right?
00:14:08
And until we're ready
to actually fire the person
00:14:11
or kick them out of bed
00:14:12
or fire them from our team,
00:14:13
we have to focus
on those replacement behaviors,
00:14:16
what they should be doing instead.
00:14:19
And I think as we think through
kind of, scaling this type of feedback,
00:14:24
it can be very scary to make
these types of change.
00:14:26
What I found is that cultures of anxious,
nice feedback are ingrained.
00:14:31
They're systemic,
00:14:32
they are deeply embedded in a community,
00:14:35
in the workplace, in a team,
00:14:38
even in dyadic
interpersonal relationships.
00:14:40
And so to break that cycle,
you have to start small,
00:14:43
you need to start neutral.
00:14:45
And by neutral I mean things
00:14:46
that are not scary
to hear critical feedback on.
00:14:49
You might be thinking to yourself,
00:14:51
what's some neutral feedback
that you could give me
00:14:53
at the end of my talk?
00:14:55
How about "I would switch the order
of the points on your talk"
00:14:58
or "I would change the font."
00:14:59
These types of feedback
are specific, and so they're useful,
00:15:02
but they're not scary to deliver
00:15:03
and they're not actually scary to receive.
00:15:06
And what we find is that when people
take these baby steps
00:15:08
to work up to this type of feedback,
00:15:10
they are much less
anxious in the delivery.
00:15:13
So those behaviors I opened with
of people fidgeting,
00:15:16
engaging in what we call a brittle smile,
00:15:19
avoiding eye contact,
00:15:20
they actually go down
00:15:21
and so do those stress responses
00:15:23
when you know and you're anticipating
giving this kind of feedback
00:15:27
that isn't going to sting.
00:15:29
And I think as you work through this,
00:15:31
I don't want to be a proponent
of killing niceness entirely.
00:15:34
I think it's actually really important
00:15:36
to put niceness in the delivery
of your feedback,
00:15:39
and that can come across
in a bunch of different ways.
00:15:41
It can come across as by showing
you're engaged, you listened.
00:15:44
You know what the person's
actually trying to do,
00:15:46
you're aligned with their goals.
00:15:48
The first time I actually got this type
of critical nice feedback
00:15:51
was after a talk I gave
00:15:53
and the person came up to me and she said,
00:15:55
"Can I give you some feedback?"
00:15:57
And immediately my heart started pounding.
00:15:59
I'm like, oh great, here we go.
00:16:00
No one likes hearing,
"Can I give you some feedback?"
00:16:03
And she opened with three things
that she thought I did well.
00:16:06
"I really liked points one, two
and three you made in that talk.
00:16:10
They really resonated with me.
00:16:12
But you have this habit
when you're concentrating
00:16:15
of looking up and to the right,
00:16:17
and so you spent half the talk
kind of staring at the ceiling
00:16:20
or the exit sign in this case,
00:16:22
instead of making eye contact
with the audience.
00:16:24
And it's distracting
and it creates a distance."
00:16:26
So I thought a little bit about it
00:16:28
with my eyes probably
rolled up inside my head,
00:16:31
and I thought, OK, I can
actually make that change.
00:16:34
It doesn't feel super scary.
00:16:36
And so I did.
00:16:37
I made that change, and I thought
about how she framed that feedback
00:16:40
through this culture of niceness.
00:16:42
So I want to wish you all luck
00:16:44
on your journey of trying to change
culture of feedback,
00:16:47
killing anxious niceness,
00:16:49
and hopefully have some concrete steps
to help you move forward.
00:16:52
Thank you.
00:16:53
(Applause)
