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Transcriber: Reiko Bovee
Reviewer: Freakbill Huang
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All right. I've been a neuroscientist
for the past 15 years.
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And based on what I learned,
I'd like to make a pretty bold claim.
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Now, this isn't a late-night infomercial,
and there's nothing for you to buy.
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But I'm going to give you the secret
by the end of my talk
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to be smarter, happier
and more productive.
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This secret depends on a couple
of superpowers that we all have
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and one "kryptonite"
that kind of gets in the way.
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Let's start with Earl and Gloria.
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For more than half a century
they lived the American dream.
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They were high school sweethearts,
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and Earl volunteered
to be a World War II naval pilot,
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and Gloria went off
to the training camp with them.
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And when they returned,
he built his own house
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and a thriving business.
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where they worked together for years
while raising their family.
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But at the age of 67,
Earl died of prostate cancer.
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And Gloria was never the same
after Earl died.
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She became fixated on her past with him,
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and yet her memory was slipping away
more and more each day.
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And her personality changed too.
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She used to be charming and witty,
and now she became inattentive even mean.
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Her family and friends tried to understand
her dramatic transformation, doctors too.
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But they were never able
to identify a physical cause.
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For Gloria, the cause
of these changes was clear.
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She was dying
from the pain of a broken heart.
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And I know this because she told me
every chance she got.
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See, Gloria was my grandmother.
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So, was my grandmother right?
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Well, at the very least, it should lead us
to wonder about the painful experiences
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we've all had in our own lives.
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If I asked you to think
about your most painful memories,
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you'd probably list the death
of a loved one before a broken leg.
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But when you hear my grandmother's story
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you're probably thinking
that her "pain" is metaphorical.
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So, a broken leg that causes real pain,
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but social pain, the pain
that comes from loss of rejection,
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maybe not so much.
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About a decade ago, Naomi Eisenberger
and I set out to test
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whether social pain
is more than just a metaphor.
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We asked people to come in
and lay in MRI scanners
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where they believed that they were playing
this simple ball tossing game
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with two other people,
also laying in scanners.
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If you were in our study
you just hold this little hand
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at the bottom of the screen.
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And whenever the ball came to you
you'd decide who to throw it to next.
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Pretty boring stuff.
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But then something interesting happens.
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The other two people stop
throwing you the ball, forever.
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You never get the ball again.
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(Laughter)
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When we looked at the brains
of these individulas
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who had just been rejected
we saw two fascinating things.
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First the same brain regions that register
the distress of physical pain
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were also more active when people
were left out of the game
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compared to when they had been included.
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And second the more someone told us
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they felt bad about
being left out of the game
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the stronger the response
was in these regions.
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Now if this doesn't persuade you
that social pain is real pain,
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consider the following.
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Tylenol makes these effects go away.
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The same pain killer that you take
for your headache
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can help with your heartache, too.
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Social pain is real pain.
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I don't mean to suggest
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that a broken heart
is the same as a broken leg,
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any more than a stomachache
is the same as arthritis.
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But we distinguish various kinds of pain.
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And social pain ought
to be awarded a membership
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in a pain club.
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So, why would we be built this way?
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At first blush, the fact
that social pain is so distressing
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and can derail us
for days or weeks on end,
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seems like an evolutionary misstep.
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Why would we be built
with this vulnerability?
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Well, just like other kinds of pain.
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Social pain may not be pleasant
in a moment,
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but we would be lost without it.
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If I asked you what you think you need
to survive, most of you might say,
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food, water and shelter.
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A psychologist, Abraham Maslow
in his hierarchy of needs
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suggested that these physical needs
are the most basic,
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and other needs only become relevant
when these needs have been met.
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But Maslow had it wrong.
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See if you're a mammal -
and I'm pretty sure all of you are -
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then what you need more than anything
to survive is social connection
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because mammals are born immature,
incapable of taking care of themselves.
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Each one of you only survived infancy
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because someone had such an urge
to connect with you
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that every time they were separated
from you or heard you cry,
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it caused them a pain that motivated them
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to come find you and help you
over and over again.
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And as infants each of you cried
when you were hungry, thirsty or cold.
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But you also cried
when you were simply separated
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from your caregiver
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because social separation
causes pain in infants.
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You might think that our tendency
to feel social pain
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is a kind of kryptonite.
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But our urge to connect
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and the pain we feel
when this need is thwarted,
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is one of the seminal achievements
of our brain
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that motivates us
to live, work and play together.
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You can have the greatest idea
in the world,
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but if you can't connect with other people
nothing will come of it.
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You can't build a rocket ship by yourself.
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Rather than being a kind of kryptonite,
our capacity for social pain
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is one of our greatest superpowers.
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Let's talk about another one.
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How many of you have played
"rock-paper-scissors" before?
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Two people each throw one
of three gestures to see who wins.
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So we know that "rock" beats "scissors"
"scissors" beats "paper,"
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and for some mysterious reason
"paper" beats "rock."
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(Laughter)
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Now this seems like a reasonable way
to settle a minor dispute
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because neither side knows
what the other will throw.
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So, the outcome should be random, fair,
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except that it isn't.
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See, rock-paper-scissor novices
have a variety of tendencies
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that can be exploited
by more experienced players.
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For instance, inexperienced male players
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have an increased likelihood
of starting with a throw of "rock,"
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because rocks are implicitly
associated with power.
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(Laughter)
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And this gives a smart opponent
the upper hand.
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Now in 2006 this guy, Bob Cooper
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emerged victorious
over 500 other competitors
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to be crowned
Rock-Paper-Scissors World Champion.
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(Laughter)
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And yes that's the thing.
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Now Bob Cooper is the real deal,
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he even beat a math professor
who chose his sequence of throws
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based on the digits of Pi.
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Now after he won
he revealed his secret.
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He said, "It's about predicting
what your opponent predicts your throw.
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It's about manipulating
what they think you'll throw,
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and then getting inside their heads to see
if you've successfully misdirected them."
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He said he grew the beard
so that he looks like a tough guy
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who would throw rock a lot and said,
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"How ofter did you see me
throwing rock in the finals?"
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Cooper has this amazing talent
for reading minds,
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but so do each of you.
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Every one of us is a mind reader
countless times each day.
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Let me give you an example.
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Imagine I had come up on stage followed
by someone holding a gun to my head.
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I then proceeded to declare
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that Justin Bieber
is the greatest musical talent
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of this or any other generation.
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You would be easily moved
from the visible signs,
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the gun, my gender, my age
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to the invisible,
my thoughts and feelings,
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my fear of being shot
if I don't do as I've been instructed.
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Now our mind reading abilities
aren't perfect, far from it,
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but it is extraordinary
that we can do this at all,
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given that none of us have ever seen
a thought or feeling.
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The fact that we can peer
into the minds of those around us
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and imagine their responses
to nearly any situation
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gives us an unparalleled capacity
for cooperation and collaboration.
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This is unquestionably
a social superpower.
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Then you might think
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that this is just another application
of our general ability
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to think and reason analytically,
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use our big old prefrontal cortex
to solve nearly any problem we're given.
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You might think this, but you'd be wrong.
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Our ability to think socially
is so essential to our survival
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that evolution gave us
a separate brain system
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just for this kind of thinking.
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So, the outer surface of your brain,
there's this network
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that's just for doing almost any kind
of analytical thinking you can imagine,
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logical reasoning down
to holding a phone number in mind
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while you hunt for your phone.
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And then there's this other network,
more on the midline of the brain
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that's just for social thinking
for mind reading.
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We know that this network
for social thinking tends
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to be quieted down
by other kinds of thinking.
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So, it's as if these two networks
for social and analytical thinking
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are on two ends of a see-saw;
when one goes up, the other goes down.
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We also know that this network
for social thinking
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comes on like a reflex.
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Whenever you finish doing
any kind of analytical thinking
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whenever your brain
gets a chance to rest, to idle
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this network for mind-reading
pops up immediately.
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And if I were to ask you
in a minute from now -
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ok, to do some kind of mind reading task -
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then right now before I had asked you,
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the extent to which this network
spontaneously and preemptively pops up,
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the better you'll do
on the mind reading task
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when I asked you to do it.
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Just like seeing this word [FACE]
primes you and get you ready
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to see this illusion as two faces
rather than as a vase,
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this network for social thinking
coming on preemptively
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before you walk
into the next situation of your life,
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gets you ready to see
the actions around you
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in terms of the minds behind them.
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Evolution has made a bet
that the best thing for your brain to do
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in any spare moment is to get ready
to see the world socially.
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And finally this network also comes on
when we're taking in new information.
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My lab's found that when you're watching
a trailer for an upcoming movie,
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the more this network pops up,
the more likely you'll be
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to go get on Facebook
and tell your friends about it.
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This network switches us
from being information consumers
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to information DJs, motivating us to share
what we learn with those around us.
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Something essential
to the success of mankind.
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So, if social pain keeps us close
to important others,
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and mind reading abilities
keep us living well with one another,
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well, what's our kryptonite?
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Simple.
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Not appreciating the value
of our social superpowers
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is our kryptonite.
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We don't realize the importance
of social in our lives.
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When we do we too easily forget again.
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Getting more social is the secret
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to making us a smarter, happier
and more productive.
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Let me take those in turn.
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In the classroom being social
is treated as the enemy of learning
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but it turns out that if you learn
in order to teach someone else
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you learn better than if you learn
in order to take a test.
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Research in my lab and another has shown
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that when you're socially
motivated to learn,
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your social brain can do the learning,
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and it can do it better
than the analytical network
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that you typically activate
when you try to memorize.
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This idea of learning for teaching
was actually implemented
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as a national standard in France.
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After the French Revolution
there was a massive teacher shortage
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and children were recruited
to teach other children.
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And it was wildly successful,
but when France got back on its feet
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and forgot about social and went back
to the traditional classroom.
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Let's talk about business.
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We know that great leaders
make teams more productive.
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But what makes for a great leader?
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According to a large recent survey,
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a leader who has
an analytically-minded focus
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and is focused on getting results
has relatively small chance
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of being seen as a great leader.
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But if that same leader also
has strong social skills,
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the chance of being seen
as a great leader skyrockets.
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Social, social skill are a multiplier,
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they allow us to leverage
the analytical abilities
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of those around us.
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If we really connected with one another
on a team, each of us will work
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to complement the strengths
and weaknesses of others on the team.
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And remember you can't build
a rocket by yourself.
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So what percentage of leaders
do score high
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on being both results-focused
and having strong social skills?
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Less than one percent.
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Because we don't recognize
the value of social,
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we're promoting the wrong people
into leadership positions
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and not giving them the social skills
training they need once they get there.
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And as a side note,
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because of the social brain's wiring
when you praise an employee's performance
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you're doing the same thing
to their brains reward system
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that giving them a raise would do
but at no cost to the company.
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Finally happiness.
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We know that social connection
is one of the best predictors
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of happiness and well-being.
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And in contrast, increasing wealth
is not a very good predictor
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of happiness and well-being.
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Nevertheless over the past 50 years
we have come to value
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the pursuit of wealth more and more, often
at the expense of our social well-being,
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spending more time at the office
and away from family and friends.
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Last month
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I received an outrageous offer
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for a huge sum of money to move to Russia
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for four months for each
of the next two years
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to help train neuroscientists.
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It was the kind of money
that an academic only dreams about.
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And frankly I became completely
obsessed witht the idea of going,
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so obsessed that I couldn't sleep
for days on end.
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But ultimately I decided not to go.
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See my wife and son are the bedrock
of my social well-being,
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and they weren't going to be going.
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My time with them can't be replaced
by the money that I would make in Russia.
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My son will only be seven once,
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and no amount of money
could ever make him seven again
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and give me back those moments
that will be able to share with him.
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For those of you with full grown children
how much money would you spend
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to have a few more months with them
back when they were seven years old?
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Now if I needed to do this
to put food on the table,
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I would go in a heartbeat,
no question about it.
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But we have what we need,
we have enough money.
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This money would let us buy
nicer cars and maybe a bigger house.
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But if I went it would be at the risk
of sacrificing my own social well-being
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and my family's too.
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These are the real roots of happiness
and even knowing that,
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even studying the social brain
like I do,
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This was one of the single
hardest decisions of my life.
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Not knowing in our guts
the value of social,
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the real literal value of social
is our greatest kryptonite.
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And if we want future generations
to be smarter, happier and more productive,
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we need to be teaching them
about their social superpowers
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from a very young age
and helping them train these abilities.
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You might not be able
to explain to your kids
00:17:44
why they need to learn algebra.
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But there is no question
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that strengthening and understanding
these social superpowers
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will help our children
for their entire lives.
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Thank you.
00:17:55
(Applause)
