239. Caring What Others Think Isn't Your Weakness
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Welcome to Joy Lab!: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Joy Lab podcast, where we help you uncover and foster your most joyful self. Your hosts, Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr. Aimee Prasek, bring you the ideal mix of soulful and scientifically sound tools to spark your joy, even when it feels dark. When you're ready to experiment with more joy, combine this podcast with the full Joy Lab program over at JoyLab.coach.
Henry: Hello, I'm Henry Emmons and welcome back to Joy Lab.
Aimee Prasek: And I am Aimee Prasek. So here at Joy Lab, we help you uncover and grow your most joyful self. And I just wanna encourage you to be sure to follow the show on your favorite listening platform wherever you listen to us. If you wanna learn more about the Podcast, more about the Program, head over to JoyLab.Coach. We got good stuff over there.
Now, today we are talking about our Element of Sympathetic Joy, which is our ability [00:01:00] to soak in the successes, the celebrations, the happiness of others. This is such an interesting Element because it is so powerful and kind of simple in theory and yet so hard in practice sometimes. Uh, and we talked a little bit about the science behind this Element last episode, it can be helpful if you haven't listened to that, to, to check in on that episode either before this or after. Today we're gonna take a little twist on this Element and get into this idea of caring about what others think.
Henry: Ooh. I care a lot about that.
Aimee Prasek: Okay? And that might not be a problem.
Henry: Oh, thanks.
Aimee Prasek: You're welcome.
Henry: It's good to know
Aimee Prasek: Yeah, but it can be an obstacle to sympathetic joy,
but like not the way you think perhaps it may actually be that caring too much about caring about what others think—I think I said that right—might be more of the trap here. So [00:02:00] let's get into that.
Henry: Okay. I gotta think about that for a minute.
Aimee Prasek: Let me tell you why I started thinking about this. I started thinking about this because I had a conversation with my daughter. She was embarrassed about something, um, told me about it, and I said, just like reactively, oh, "don't care about what other people think of you. It doesn't matter." And after I said that out loud, I was like, "nope, nope, that's wrong. Hold on. That's not true. And then I think that's bad advice." And so we kind of got into it more and and thinking about this more. And so I wanted to talk about it here too.
Okay. I think that we see and hear this kind of messaging all the time, Like the give zero Fs, I don't give a F eras. This idea that caring about what others think of you is some kind of [00:03:00] weakness or character flaw.
But here is the thing, caring, yes, caring about what others think of you is not really the problem. In fact, it's completely normal. It's wired into us as humans. We talked about this a lot last episode. We're gonna get into it more. So little, maybe a little recap from the last episode. You might already know then that we have evolved this way to foster more pro-social behavior. Just kind of this caring , generally caring about what others think. Our ancestors, who cared about what their community members thought and who wanted to maintain those relationships and stay connected, they were the ones who were more likely to survive. Right? It's no different today. This is still an evolutionary advantage. Our ability to read social cues, to adapt to group norms, to care about our reputation. These are features, [00:04:00] not bugs. And at the same time, and as it relates to sympathetic joy, if we're really caught in a cycle of trying to stop the natural tendency of caring about what others think of us, or if we've exceeded that healthy level and are too worried about what others think of us, then we've kind of got that maybe negative hyperfocus on ourself, and that can really be an obstacle. So let's unpack why caring about what others think of us gets such a bad rap, when it actually becomes a problem, because it can, and how we can honor this innate need for connections so that we can celebrate with others, we can soak in the goodness of shared success, while also showing up authentically and staying connected to ourselves.
Henry: I think this is gonna be really interesting to unpack, Aimee. 'cause we, we often talk [00:05:00] about how these, these important traits, you know, certain, emotional trait or inner traits, they, they exist on a spectrum and it seems to me this is one of those really important spectrums.
So on one end, there might be someone who just doesn't care, one whit what other people think and will go ahead and do whatever they please, no matter who it affects.
And then on the other end of spectrum, there's someone who might get caught in guilt or shame, you know, which in the mental health world, I think we all know these are sources of a lot of unnecessary emotional suffering. So I think we're gonna aim for the sweet spot here, the middle way, and I'm just interested to see how we're gonna get there.
Aimee Prasek: Me too. Now I'm worried I promised too much. No, we've got good stuff here. I think this is so important. Let's actually start back then with some of the Asch [00:06:00] conformity experiments. So I brought these up last episode, and so the first of these kind of experiments, these were done in the 1950s or the beginning of 'em by Solomon Asch had to do with judging line distances.
Henry: The distance of a line, written line or the...
Aimee Prasek: Yep. Yep. So here, let's, it'll be, let's imagine we're all doing the experiment, okay? We're in a room with a group of people and we are shown one line on a card to our left. Okay? So one line on one card, and then you're shown three comparison lines to your right. So you have another card with three lines on it, and you have to say which line on the right matches that single line on the left.
Henry: Okay.
Aimee Prasek: Okay, don't worry. It's super obvious. If you can see the person in front of you, then you know the right answer. It's so obvious. This is not a trick. It's not an optical illusion. Here's the twist.
Henry: Of course.
Who was Who was this Asch [00:07:00] fellow?
Aimee Prasek: I love these researchers who are just based, it's just tricks. They're just playing tricks on people.
Henry: He's a tricky guy.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah, these are my favorite. So everyone else in the room is actually in on the experiment and they are instructed to give the wrong answer. So you are sitting there, you know which line on the right matches the one on the left, it's so flippin' obvious, but person after person ahead of you confidently chooses the wrong line
Henry: Oh boy.
Aimee Prasek: And then it's your turn. What do you do?
Henry: Oh boy. Okay. I'll be honest. I think I would feel very uncomfortable because on the one hand, I really, really want to be right, okay. But at the same time, I really, really care what other people think, and I don't want to go it alone. I don't want to go against the crowd. So I would guess I would start to [00:08:00] doubt myself, think I'm missing something if everyone else is choosing a different answer.
I could imagine myself maybe starting out, choosing the right answer, but then gradually letting myself be persuaded by the crowd and, and going along with them.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah,
Henry: Is that a bad, is that a, am I a, am I a bad, study participant?
Aimee Prasek: You are right in line with everybody else. Line pun intended. It's very likely that you are going to say what the group said, and it's not the right answer. You're gonna give the wrong answer. So in this study, about 75% of participants conformed at least once, so they gave the wrong answer and they dismissed their own better judgment to go along with the group.
Just as you said, they had those same emotional experiences of doubt, insecurity, and then ultimately conformity even though they could clearly see the right answer. [00:09:00] That pull to belong, it was much stronger. And one third of the participants in these line studies and in other conformities studies that they've done, go along with the group fully and give the wrong answer every single time.
Henry: Wow.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: So I don't know the context of this study, kinda why they did it, what they were trying to, to show, but I find it a little bit unsettling, you know, besides Solomon Asch being a trickster, but it is easy. This makes it pretty easy to see how a lot of us might get pulled into something we really don't agree with.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: Just because that's where the crowd is going. So I am not really into social media as you know, but it isn't hard to imagine how easy it would be for, for [00:10:00] folks to be influenced by somebody with strong convictions on social media or by someone who you've just given an outsized amount of influence over you.
You'd have to be really a, have a strong sense of your own wisdom to resist that pull to go along with the crowd.
Aimee Prasek: This is like the science of influencer culture. It's a bit unsettling.
Henry: Yeah.
Aimee Prasek: I, it makes me think of the Milgram experiments for more on, holy Lord, if you wanna talk about unsettling.
Henry: Yep.
Aimee Prasek: But this is why we have to be aware of these tendencies and i'll note back though to that finding with conformity experiments like this that I noted last episode, and it is the fact that yes, most of us will fall into group thinking and behaviors and it, the good news here, it only takes one person to pull us out of it, at least in the context of these studies, So [00:11:00] when one of those confederates, a member of the research trickster team gave the right answer, that poor participant who was not in on the experiment was like, "Oh, god. Okay. I can trust my gut. I can go with my wisdom," and they don't conform.
Henry: mm-hmm. It takes one courageous person.
Aimee Prasek: Yes. Yeah. And you know, you don't always have to be that courageous person. Sometimes you can look for that courageous
person.
Henry: Yeah.
Aimee Prasek: I think the other piece, I don't know why I'm the one reframing this into the positive, Henry, this is your
job,
but
Henry: What's going
Aimee Prasek: on
Henry: here?
Aimee Prasek: Good.
Henry: You go for it.
Aimee Prasek: I'm gonna do it.
Yeah. It's making me feel good. Isn't that crazy?
I know. Uh, knock it off. But I think what is kind of cool about this is that these tendencies really are there to protect us, and they're made to be flexible. So they're made to protect us and then to take in new information or support and not hold us back or keep us stuck. [00:12:00] So I, I also wanna, channel our series on authenticity here to identify a bit more about maybe this, this leaning into conformity or caring about what others think. So in that series we talked about the development of a false self. Sometimes we conform and then kind of build up on top of that a false self to really anchor that conformity and then it can get easier to get stuck because we've attached these other aspects of ourselves to this idea or behavior or group.
And so I, I think. I kind of think of it as like plaque. There can be this extra buildup on this really natural tendency toward conformity and it be can become kind of the shape-shifting, censoring of ourselves that can become pretty disconnected from our own authentic feelings and desires that it can be hard to then know what it is that we want [00:13:00] anymore or what we truly know to, to kind of uncover and tap back into that. And so, even when we know that we might be conforming, it can be hard to disentangle all those pieces we've a added on like, let's be real. And again, we're doing this as a survival mechanism. Or if survival sounds too extreme, we're often doing this stuff because we wanna belong.
We wanna,
Henry: Which can feel like as important as survival.
Aimee Prasek: It is. Yes, we wanna feel connected. We wanna feel safe 'cause we are safer in groups that support that shared connection. It is what helps us survive and thrive. So it can be helpful though to check in on that drive. Like what's behind it? What might I be caught getting caught up in? Why might I be caring too much, about what others think of me? Like what is behind that drive?
Henry: I am thinking about, um, when I, when I talk [00:14:00] about resilience, I refer to two really, really important factors that are hard to change, that influence our, our level of resilience. And I think it applies here too. And those are our genetic makeup and our early childhood experience. 'Cause both of these are just really important because they kind of set an emotional baseline that stays with us more or less intact throughout our lifetime.
They can be changed a little bit. You can even change your, your genetic expression a little bit. And certainly you can, you can influence or maybe undo the influence of your early childhood experiences, but they're pretty enduring. You know, let's just say for most of us, if we didn't have too much trauma in childhood, it's, it still has a really enduring impact on who we are and how we approach the world emotionally.
Aimee Prasek: Hmm.
Henry: So in this context, [00:15:00] one's genetic makeup actually has a pretty strong influence on what I think of as temperament, which has a, has an impact on, on what we're talking about. So anybody who's been around young children can tell you, you can get a good feel for that child's temperament at a really early age.
Really, really early. So what you referenced earlier, Aimee, about how pro-social behavior evolved because it led to more coherent communities. Some of us are just wired, we've kind of maybe more on that, that end of the spectrum of evolution, we're just more wired to care about what other people think.
Aimee Prasek: Absolutely.
Henry: Then of course, our early childhood influences really have a outsized impact on this, creating this too.
So you and I both live in Minnesota where there is a cultural norm, I think to be a little [00:16:00] more conforming.
perhaps. It's kind of, I mean,
there is
Aimee Prasek: aggressive. Absolutely.
Henry: You know? It's just not okay to stick out too much, to be different, or to even to shine, you know, to be special. It's not not cool, and I don't think Minnesotans are the only place in the world that does this.
You know, I think some cultures are just a little more conformist than others.
So those two things are really huge. But then there is this, you know, what's going on in our current life situation, stresses and so forth. So there's a big factor here that we cannot ignore, and that's the importance of media and our current political conversation.
Those who state a viewpoint different from ours, even if it might be a majority view, but it's not in line with a certain group, they're at risk of being [00:17:00] attacked, bullied, canceled. It's a tough time to be an individual who is willing to put themselves on the line by speaking their own truth. It's hard to be a, you know, a courageous person right now and, and, uh, kind of reveal that to the world.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah. I think there's, there's a lot of factors that kinda draw us to conform. Um, just as you noted some of those fears, and that help us to feel like we are being constantly assessed, graded, or judged. And there are times when we are, when someone is judging us, maybe behind the screen, some keyboard warrior. Here's the thing though as well, we actually don't know what others are thinking oftentimes. We cannot read minds. I'm trying to. I'm trying to learn the art of [00:18:00] telepathy, but it's not working. I'll let you know how that goes. But back to your note on childhood experiences, Henry, I think we're even more fooled by this if we grew up in a house with poor communication. Like where we had to try and figure out what others were thinking, where we had to walk on eggshells, maybe to try and control someone else's outbursts or feel like we could control their outbursts. which trained us to be these kind of hypervigilant mind readers, except often we're just reading things that maybe aren't there. And I think even just as you noted those things in culture, that can be really scary, which is to be wrong and to be attacked, to be bullied, to be canceled. It's that same kind of almost response that hypervigilant mind reading that I'm going to communicate what I think is to be expected. And there's something here that I think is important to note. It's called the [00:19:00] liking gap. It's a phenomenon, that has been identified essentially, when people are in a first conversation, for example, with a new person, we tend to underestimate how much the other person liked us. So once, you know, we have this first conversation and then we walk away and we think, oh God, they probably thought I was awkward or boring. And then the other person walks away and they think, oh God, they probably thought I was, you know, annoying and I talked too much. Uh, Meanwhile, both people actually enjoyed the conversation more than they realized. It's wild. So we are often harder on ourselves than we should be. And the liking gap, what's kind of crazy, it has a purpose.
Again, it can actually motivate us to continue working toward building positive relationships, which is good. But But if we,
Henry: That's a positive spin. Aimee,
Aimee Prasek: I know I am on optimism, [00:20:00] fire.
Henry: You are, I love it.
Aimee Prasek: I know I, this is, this is why Joy Lab works folks. I can see it. I can see it. so, but you know, we have to be aware of that tendency, maybe that liking gap, because, it can also, it can also fuel our sense of not measuring up, and our unfair self-criticism. So, it's something that can help us, but, you know, to build those relationships. But we kind of gotta counter it, remind ourselves that maybe the first instinct or the first message that arises after that conversation maybe isn't quite accurate. But it's an encouragement to build a connection to build those bonds and relationships. And so if this stuff is coming up for you, I think as well, another affirmation here, it's a message that you've got good emotional intelligence and you're tuned into social dynamics.
You have empathy. Yeah. So part of the process [00:21:00] here of learning how to not care so much about what others think is to not fight those initial surges or messages. Henry, you spoke to this also in last episode, to not fight that feeling
Henry: mm-hmm.
Aimee Prasek: that you might be getting when you're in those interactions or environments, when you feel like someone is judging you or you're feeling self-conscious or self-critical, to be kinder to yourself when those sensations come up, because they are totally natural and they're there to try to help you connect. So we can almost embrace those really uncomfortable feelings, or at least accept them and know that at their essence they are there to help us. And oftentimes when we fight 'em less. They tend to back off. So Henry, do you have any other tips to help then if we're stuck, maybe caring too much about what others think of us?
Henry: Yeah, I, I wanna go back to [00:22:00] the concept of authenticity, which, you know, we've, we've talked, we did a whole series on this not too long ago. So I do think that there's a value to society and to us as part of society to be tuned into social dynamics, you know, to wanna stay connected to the larger community.
But I also see the journey of our inner life as moving us gently toward being more and more ourselves, becoming our true self. And that might mean going against the grain of a larger community and gradually learning to care a bit less about what other people think of me.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: So I think there can be a lot of healing in this because many of the old wounds we carry weren't ours to carry in the first place. Honestly. We took them on because maybe [00:23:00] someone we respected, like a parent or a teacher or even a friend, said or did something that made us feel bad about ourselves. Or we just took the messages of society that this or that isn't okay, and we accepted that as truth with a capital T, even if it isn't my truth.
I think this is hard work learning which messages serve us and which don't, and becoming able to set them aside and claim our own inner freedom, the freedom to choose what we wanna believe, How we wanna live. It's hard work, but it is so important.
And I think a lot of it, we can do this on our own. There's a lot of things we can do on our own, but it is also a really good reason to seek out some help from time to time.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah. This can be a lot of great work with [00:24:00] psychotherapist with CBT addressing social anxiety, all these areas. There's so many modalities to work here but it is hard work. It's a lot of the work we do here, stepping back into ourselves, staying connected- matters.
I hope this conversation has helped you to maybe understand that caring what others think about you is maybe not the problem. The big problem, it's a feature of being human. It's really natural. It's how we've survived, built communities, cultures. The problem is really when we care so much that we lose ourselves in the process-- and we can find ourselves again. We are right here. You never went anywhere. And sympathetic joy with a big dose of self-acceptance and self-compassion can can help us get there. So to close us, I first wanna say just thank you for listening to the podcast. We so appreciate this [00:25:00] gathering of folks, interested in these Elements of Joy that support our own individual and collective resilience. It absolutely matters. If you wanna go deeper, learn more about what we do here, head over to JoyLab.coach. You can learn about our Joy Lab Program. Send us any questions that you might have. So I wanna close as well with some wisdom from Brene Brown. I think it captures it pretty well what we talked about. Here it is. "True belonging doesn't require you to change who you are. It requires you to be who you are."
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