Finding the Unfamiliar in the Seemingly Familiar
Todd Kashdan is the Founder of Kashdan Consulting, where he provides consulting services to organizations looking to improve their well-being. He offers keynotes, workshops, program development, and program evaluation.
Todd is among the world’s top experts on the psychology of well-being, psychological strengths, mental agility, and social relationships. His research has been featured in hundreds of media outlets, including multiple articles in the Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, and Forbes.
He is also a Professor of Psychology at George Mason University, where he founded the Well-Being Lab. He has published over 210 peer-reviewed journal articles on well-being and resilience, psychological flexibility, meaning and purpose in life, curiosity, and social anxiety management.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Todd Kashdan talks about his latest book, The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively
Why curiosity is especially essential today
What does curiosity mean?
Understanding curiosity as an ability and a learned skill
The difference curiosity makes in the life of a couple
How do you act when you are the recipient of someone else’s curiosity
What happens in a relationship where curiosity is lacking?
In this episode…
We often take pride in how well we know our relationship partners. But what we often don’t realize is the collective knowledge and shared experiences we have. That knowledge decreases our propensity to be curious because things become less and less novel the more we know our partner.
Curiosity is the oxygen of relationships. To be in a successful, long-term relationship, you must be intent on finding the unfamiliar in the seemingly familiar. Curiosity differentiates a stale, failing, assumption-based relationship from a finer-grained and thriving one. In a thriving relationship, you’re always looking for the ever-so-slight distinctions of how your partner is changing over time. You notice how they respond differently to similar events or situations. When you are curious and seek out novel information and experiences, vitality and energy towards the relationship increase, and you are more engaged.
On this episode of the Our.Love Podcast, Jim Coan sits down with Todd Kashdan, a Professor of Psychology at George Mason University, to discuss the importance of curiosity in relationships. Todd talks about what curiosity means, understanding curiosity as an ability and a learned skill, the difference curiosity makes in relationships, and what happens when a relationship is devoid of curiosity.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively by Todd Kashdan
Curious?: Discover the Missing Ingredient to a Fulfilling Life by Todd Kashdan
The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again by Catherine Price
Sponsor for this episode
This episode is brought to you by “Our.Love Company.”
If you want to build a strong long-lasting relationship with your significant other and explore new-exciting ways to engage each other, download our Our.Love app today - it is free!
Go to www.our.love and sign up for the latest insights on all topics related to relationships and love! as well as Access to our app! It’s free.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:03
Welcome to Our.Love Podcast, where we share insights from top scientists and relationship experts on all things about love that are out of the box, refreshing and new. Now sit back, grab a cold drink or hot one if you prefer. And enjoy today's episode.
Jim Coan 0:25
All right, so Todd Kashdan. Thank you for talking with me about curiosity. And And I'm curious to know other things as well. You've got a new book coming out. First thing I want to I want to talk about, can you tell us a little bit about this new new work that you're doing?
Todd Kashdan 0:42
Yeah, well, it's great to be here. Anything about the science of love and getting it to as many people as possible is going to help create a better, better world. And that's, I mean, my books align the same kind of thing, which is called The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively. I wrote it before Trump, I wrote it before the 2020 election, I wrote it before we had a Gamestop attacking the bizarreness of Wall Street and COVID didn't exist back then. And every for every month that I've been working over the past six years, it just becomes more and more relevant, because you're watching, you know, the whistleblower for Facebook, you're watching people take the stand against Google in terms of, you know, a mental about whether men and women differ in terms of their engineering skills. You're talking about people having differential reactions to race, sex, gender, transgender in the community, you've got political organizations that have decided to mobilize parents against each other and local communities. And the book just becomes more relevant of the principles part is the key. This is about what's the science behind principled dissent against social norms that are destructive or problematic, or systems that are destructive or problematic.
Jim Coan 2:03
Principles. So I it seems like there's going to be some relevance here for dealing with a relationship to where, let's say, sometimes occasionally, disagreements might arise.
Todd Kashdan 2:16
Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, one of the most interesting things is when you you hear hyperbolic statements like this is the most, it logically confirmed conflicted time in the history of America. And you have to know a little bit about history. I mean, you're in James Monroe's house right now, as we're talking. I mean, if you go to the 1800s, you didn't have an argument on Twitter, you took so into a field and you had a duel, and you actually shot them in the chest? And so, you know, rather than having it's the wrong question of, do we have more ideological polarization and conflict today, the question is, how problematic are our strategies for trying to communicate with people who have differing views, perspectives and ideas?
Jim Coan 2:59
How do we deal with differing views, perspectives and ideas, such a core element to all of our lives right now, and to the country and to our personal relationships? Speaking of personal relationships, one of the things that I really wanted to talk with you about is your work on curiosity. And indeed, the the book by the same name, was it it was called Curious?, curious with a question mark. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. I keep when I've tried to recommend the book to people. It's like, you got to get this book, Curious?
Todd Kashdan 3:37
And they say to you, you know what, Listen, stop. Speaking. As a 14 year old female, TikToker, and I want you to to get rid of the inflection at the end of your sentence and say, with more confidence, exactly, which is what I trade for me. Yeah, I trained my daughters and my students in my class Michael gave, say that without the extra pitch at the end, and you're going to sound with more conviction and confidence.
Jim Coan 4:01
Well, you bungled that one. Seriously, though, great book, great work really inspiring. Because, you know, as a scientist and a scholar, and just a person who's interested in the world, as part of what led me here, curiosity’s, you know, part of my I feel like, every day I get up and try to drum up some, some inspiration to be curious. And that's what, in some ways what my job is.
Todd Kashdan 4:35
Yeah, there's been there's been an interesting thing. One of one of the cultural trends that I don't think is spoken enough about over the past two years, as many of us have been indoors with whoever it is living with us getting to our core relationships, is how do you find novelty, when you're living in a place that you've already habituated to, assuming you didn't move into your place two months before COVID hit, and you had a shutdown? And there's a lot ought to be said about finding the unfamiliar in the seemingly familiar and a lot of times we have many of our conversations with are about the same characters, and about the same storylines. And you know, the same topic. But the thing is, every time you bring it up, there's always a new twist that comes in there. And the question is, can you pay attention to the novel distinction of this conversation about how much you hate, the male comes at two o'clock in the afternoon, for the 330th time, because there's something different about your mood, your thoughts, what happened right before, what you're waiting, what you're waiting for in the mail. And it's just gives like a little bit of a small, miniscule moment, where you can see of you can be incurious, or you can shut down and be completely in curious about the same experience hearing it from somebody else.
Jim Coan 5:55
So before we go much further, just I would, I would love to know how you define curiosity? What is what it what are even are we talking about what is curiosity?
Todd Kashdan 6:08
Yes, so if you go by any of the the major dictionary definitions, you get a pretty good, pretty good slice of it, which is the desire to seek out novel information and experiences. Now, the reason that I don't have intrinsic in front of the desire to seek out new information experiences, is it doesn't necessarily have to start with the self determined pursuit that this is clearly aligned with your cherished interests and your personality and your values. It could just be up to be intrigued by what someone wears when they walk out of their house. And you can be intrigued by some message that appears in your email. Or you can just be intrigued by an unusual facial expression by someone it's normally exuberant. And it's for some particular moment, they look pretty somber. And maybe, you know, this is this was your research decades ago, just a little micro emotional expression. Have you caught something? Do you act on it? Do you say something, you modify your behavior, and so it doesn't have to be intrinsic. So but over the course of my career, studying some great scientists realizes that one definition doesn't really suffice. And Paul, Sylvia is really one of my favorite researcher in the in the world of curiosity. And he basically kind of led me to the idea that the brain asked two questions that are just on the fringes of conscious awareness. So it says it's automatic, it's implicit. It's really impulsive. In terms of your make your mind is going to ask these questions when you're exposed to anything right. Right now I'm talking to you and I haven't seen you in quite a number of years. So my brain is going to ask two questions. First one, we all know this length of curiosity, which is, is talking to Jim going to be novel, intriguing, ambiguous, uncertain, mysterious, conflictual, any of those qualities? Then all of a sudden, if the answer is yes, I'm on the path of being curious. And that's where the dictionary definitions end. So it Paul, Sylvia's work says, Hey, there's another question that we have. And this is the missing ingredient. Do you believe that you could handle being exposed to that novelty, complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity? If you don't answer yes to the second question? And you don't answer yes to the first question, you don't have the state called curiousity part of being curious is not just seeking out this new information experiences believing it's all perception, then you can get a foothold or a handhold to start to make sense, a little bit, had the potential self efficacy to learn something from it.
Jim Coan 8:49
So when you were starting to say, the it doesn't have to be intrinsic part of what I thought where I thought you were going was, you don't have to feel curious, necessary, necessarily to exercise curiosity was was was on the wrong track. I mean, that's not where you wind up going in that particular instance. But I guess part of what I'm asking is, is curiosity, however, defined something that person has, or not, or something that a person can cultivate and build, or and what's your, what's the literature on that and what's your experience with that?
Todd Kashdan 9:32
It's such an important question not to skip over which is we have an evolutionary bias towards being curious people. So we tend to be curious that doesn't say anything about frequency, it says basically, is that if there isn't imminent danger right now, if someone's not about to grab me by the throat because I stepped on stepped on them as I was walking into a bar you know, if I if I'm walking through the street and cars aren't honking me, and I'm just looking at what's in front of me, which is, there's some trees, there's some verman, there's some characters that are pedestrians I've never seen before I'm wandering by no any of them. Without imminent danger, I have a bias towards being a little bit curious, a tiny bit. And that makes sense. Because in the absence of threat, if you think about over 2.5 million years as a species, and also animals have as much curiosity, as humans, as you have to learn about the environments, you can reduce uncertainty and make predictions about what's going to be beneficial for my survival, what's gonna be beneficial to making allies, what's gonna be beneficial to avoiding predators and enemies, and what's really beneficial to entering romantic relationships and maintaining romantic relationships. All of these things are satisfied by acquisition of knowledge and wisdom and experience. So we have this built in mechanism to lean towards curiosity. But we can learn how to be more curious more intensely, more frequently, and buy more domains in our lives. And that's something you know, this starts with Ellen Langer his research in the 70s, and continues to that and continue today.
Jim Coan 11:15
So, you know, I can imagine a situation where, you know, we're not, you know, ambling through the woods, turning over rocks, and peeking around bushes, and just sort of seeing what's out there. But instead, we're, you know, talking to a hostile negotiator about this, you know, whether to implement a mask mandate, or whether let's, let's make it a little closer to home, where you're talking with your spouse, about who's going to pick up the kids on that day where you both have a hugely packed schedule. Um, that seems like a place where Curiosity isn't necessarily natural?
Todd Kashdan 12:05
Right. Especially because of the few of the elements you brought in. So by spouse you're talking about you at least spend some some time together and invest in some money to actually, you know, pay the government fee, so you actually could be married to each other, so you know each other, and that, that, that collective knowledge and sharing, and the shared experiences, decreases the propensity to be curious, because things become less and less novel, as you learn more information about it. And less, you start to become more finer grained in looking for the ever so slight distinctions of how they're changing over the course of time, and how they respond differently to, you know, to similar elements of your environment. So just to give an example, pre COVID, you know, back in the day, when you open the newspaper to see, you know, what movies are going to be playing in a movie theater, most of us who have been married, or I should say, in a romantic relationship for over 10 years, can probably predict a pretty good accuracy of how our partner is going to respond to every single thing that comes out that week and the movies. But the thing about it is what we forget about is we're going on there, general patterns and how they respond to genres. Right? Is it a romantic comedy? Is it a horror movie? Is it some action movie within diesel, you're gonna have bad Brad Pitt shirtless, fighting someone, you know, in the gutter somewhere? What it doesn't attend to, is that people's moods in that moment influence the decisions they're going to be making. This is kind of the, the aspect confusion model is that we don't have access to their internal state and their internal state makes that a very novel experience. So as opposed to say, Hey, listen, I know you're probably gonna want to see this movie. Let's go check this out. We can say, I have no idea what you're thinking or feeling right now. So let me know what you know. What are you? What are you leading towards in terms of intrigue? What's on this list? And it's a very different approach. It goes from all assumptions, to an exploratory conversation.
Jim Coan 14:18
So what then does then does curiosity do for a couple, let's say, what does it what it How does it help? I mean, we can we can do all of these things. But why would we? Why might we want to?
Todd Kashdan 14:36
So we can think of what are the fundamental motives of being a human trying to last as many as many days and years on this planet? And there's several motives in there. So if you think from evolutionary perspective, you can think of I want to avoid threats. I want to make friends. I want to avoid toxins, I want to maintain relationships, I want to have a legacy. And I want to focus on some level of generativity for the next generation. And whether that's having kids, or whether that's, you know, writing books or doing science or creating art, or whatever it is, or just even giving advice, or even talking to and being a source of support for the younger generation. So these are like fundamental goals that we have. So the notion of curiosity, when you think from the perspective of fundamental motives, and goals, every one of those domain is where there's going to be a lot of novelty and a lot of things that you don't know, until you walk out of this room and enter the big messy world of federal humans. So in terms of friendships, if you haven't seen I mean, I haven't seen you for years, there's so much to catch up on where all I could start with is a question, which is, what are some of the things that I've missed it the last time I saw you would be the best question to ask, as opposed to starting from? Hey, are you still researching whatever it was, you know, in 2016, that would be a dead end conversation, but a place of curiosities, I'm gonna find all I'm showing that I'm invested in your attempts to flourish and grow as a human being by even asking that question. So that's one of the benefits in terms of maintaining a friendship is the signal it's a signal of, I care about your well being, and you're important to me, and what you're interested isn't important to me.
Jim Coan 16:35
So when you enact curiosity, you aren't merely sort of supporting your own experience of the world, you're doing that, which I think is is great. But you're also communicating something social, if you're curious in a social context, and that is that you are worthy of my curiosity. You know, when I think of curiosity, I often think of just my curiosity, but there's interesting, there's an interesting flipside to this, which is what happens to me, but happens to my psychology, my emotions, when someone is curious about me, genuinely, authentically curious about me. And my experience.
Todd Kashdan 17:23
Yeah. So we know this. So you know, you probably know, I've conducted several studies as it's like, what does it feel like to be the recipient of someone else's curiosity? So there's a few things that are really interesting. One is their vitality increases,
Jim Coan 17:40
the vitality increases, so they get more energized. Yeah, but
Todd Kashdan 17:43
it's, but it's so so think of it less of, you know, hands in the air, Tony Robbins $10,000 motivational speaking tour where we're jumping on a trampoline screaming at nine decibels. Think of it more as check setting the highs flow states, where you get, you get the energy to, you're now in this moment, with more gravitas. So this is something this is a place where I feel comfortable. Because I know I've gotten I've gotten the license to explore from this person's curiosity. And that's a beautiful thing. So there's another element of this, which we just touched upon, before we pressed record, which is when I express curiosity, with an open ended question of Hey, Jim, what what is it like to be in a historical house by James Monroe that goes there? And you can see, I'm not just asking a question. There's a level of enthusiasm and nonverbals. In the way I asked that question where I'm ready to sit back, and just listen to what's coming at you. Now what that does is, it's basically giving you a license of like, Oh, now I have a forum to be creative. There's no judgment whatsoever. This is this is a character that actually wants to know about history, because he made a reference not just a cool architectural house, but he mentioned James Monroe, those little details, and you don't want to obsess over these things. Because then none of us would ever talk we have seven second lags before every every time we communicate in the conversation. But when you add those, those level of details, what happens is, is I'm basically I'm basically saying implicitly, Jim, be creative. There's no judgment here, nerd out on history. I'm ready to listen, whatever excites you, that happens there. And there's a lot of power there. In terms I should say, a lot of empowerment, about letting you be you
Jim Coan 19:42
I can feel that because just just the hypothetical situation. I want to start talking about the house right now. But we've got some work to do. We'll get there. But the so you know, sort of putting it all together. Your work on the Feeling that the lived experience of being the the object of curiosity. And also, um, the the the experience of being curious seems to lead to similar places, it seems to lead to a place of sort of low level, you know, content, comfort, this is a place where we would like to be it reminds me of a John Casio pose characterization of the positivity offset. You know, the positivity offset in his theoretical formulation is where we most of the time live, most of our lives is in this state where we're sort of okay, you know, it's not like, double rainbow. Amazing, but it's, it's, you know, pretty good. But what we if you look a little more closely at his description of the positive positivity offset, Curiosity is a huge part, it's really core. Part of what makes us feeling pretty good most of the time, is that we're moving through the world kicking tires and turning over rocks, where you're sort of saying, Hey, what's that? Hey, what's that? What's that? You know, you watch your cat, I don't know, if you have cats, I have two cats, but your cat sort of ambling around the house. And it's doing just that all the time. It's like you can tell it's, it's, it's, again, it's not having the time of its cat life, maybe. But things are pretty good. Things are pretty good.
Todd Kashdan 21:34
So let me play with the cat. And let me connect with the kids as well. So well for kids and cats better have a cat. One of the things about having the cat as well is we don't have a really well developed theory of mind for our for our feline friends. They're living near us with huge inferential leaps in terms of what they're thinking, I think it was Philip dick, my favorite science fiction writer from the 60s, who he had a, he had this description of a guy who was developing paranoia in one of his novels. And essentially, he was, he believed that when he left the house to go to work, or the supermarket, that his cat was basically taking his pillowcase off his pillow and going to the house and finding everything that he wants, and creating this huge stash, playing with everything, licking everything, touching everything, even inviting other cats over to play with it. And then new with this extra sense senses beyond the five senses when he was coming home, and then would stash everything back to the normal spot. Now you can imagine in terms of paranoia, it's completely like irrefutable, unless you've got a desktop and this camera on for doing this make you sick that happens there. But what I loved about the the example of paranoia is using our imagination to try to get to get some alternative realities that are possible for someone else, when who we're with. And when we're not with them happens there. I think we often let people fall to the wayside, and really are so self absorbed and so egotistical, how we go through the world, that it really leads to empathy failures, where we're unable to experience the perspective another person, because we're not curious enough to get out of our own head. And imagine the alternative ways that another person is walking through the same day.
Jim Coan 23:31
And wow, yeah, certainly, as we create assumptions, and we make projections, and we fail to understand because we don't bother to ask in some ways, because it's easier to just not in for especially if you've been married for a long period of time. But if you're in that relationship, and you failing to ask, as many of us as have found out the hard way, can result in some, some mistaken. Some some conversations that go sideways, let's say, that don't really work out very well. Because we haven't exercised our curiosity and instead have imposed an assumption.
Todd Kashdan 24:17
Yeah, and I think it's, it's really worthwhile to move away from the pathologies of how difficult it is to be in a long term romantic relationship and long term friendships, and family. And really think about what are the norms that we can alter to make them more fun, and engaging, not dysfunctional? actually fun. And Catherine Price talks about fun. She has a new book out called The Power of Fun, where it's a combination of connection, play and flow. And in there, to me it to me when I envisioned this kind of triangular model of thought. I imagined curiosity like really as a central nucleus of this is to really connect with someone else. You have to you have to, you have to have an appreciation for wanting to know the other person's experiences. And in terms of play, you have to let your scripts you have to let your scripts dissipate and how you normally interact, and just be, you know, whatever the goofball, unfiltered, raw version that you are. And part of the connection part is that you're you have chosen, you've both self selected a relationship, where you can, Erving Goffman his language, take off the mask and take off the performative aspects of entering your social world. And now you're in the green room. And you just get to say, you get to cuss. You get to say what you don't like, you get to say like what really expressive love what you care about, your hugs are extra squeezy. And your emotions are a little bit more intense, you allow the tears to flow down your face, you actually talk about how your smile hurts, as opposed to just smiling. You can have these meta comments about what's happening as it's happening. And there's something really powerful and beautiful about having so much connection with the person that you are allowing yourself to be interested in who they are, as they are with no judgment whatsoever. And in there is like that's the, that's the pure the purity of a social relationship, those moments where you really want to extract as much as possible for the rainy days when you do have conflicts, and you do have strains, and you do have to get groceries, and you do have to pick up the kids and you do have to go over your taxes. And you do have to talk about maybe we spent too much on, you know lattes this week from Starbucks. And so those moments are, you know, you invest in those moments, not just to live in them, but actually to create, you know, a storage chamber that you can return back to when things are a little bit more mundane, that you capitulate it to
Jim Coan 26:58
What you're saying here is really profound, I think, because, you know, it's not even only about cultivating curiosity, which is to say an interest in the things around you. And in particular in the case of of romantic couples, romantic relationships, and your partner, and in their interests and desires and histories and how they might change and how they stay the same. But also you're talking about creating a a space within which vulnerability is welcome. And that, that suggests to me that vulnerability and curiosity are sort of braided together in a healthy relationship that when you because when you start being really curious, that's just part of the equation, that's just one side of the equation. The other side of the equation is responding to a curious partner in a way that's honest and vulnerable.
Todd Kashdan 28:03
Yeah, it brings us back to, you know, the secure base and the safe haven for Bowlby. And I know that, you know, you and David have written quite a lot about this, where curiosity plays with both of these things. So the idea that your partner can potentially and hopefully a lot of people listening, they have this, where they're secure base when you're feeling a high level of negative emotionality, no anger, desperation, disappointment, fear that you could go to someone and they can sooth you. And then there's the safe haven, which is often ignored. And this is kind of one of the reasons why I invest. So much of my career, studying curiosity is a safe haven is very different. It's basically saying, I have so much care for you as a person that I want you to go forth into the world with or without me and grow and expand. And when you come back as this new character, from new experiences, even if it's just, you know, you just going to hang out at a fire pit with a bunch of friends, you're going to have new information and new stories that I don't possess, that are yours alone. If you want to share them. That's awesome, because I am welcoming you a new expansive version of you. And so really curiosity plays a both in terms of you're interested in the vulnerability of the of the secure base, and you're interested in the self expansion that occurs as a safe haven. And really the, to me the optimal partner. Again, this goes for friends, romantic partners, or family or colleagues is that you would be a secure base and a safe haven.
Jim Coan 29:43
Wow, good stuff. And so if you can cultivate that kind of interaction in the best of times. Um, the other thing that you said is that it then can be a tool that you're that you're used to using and that you have Easy access to in some of the darker times. You know, one of the things that we know, for example from Gotman's work some of the work that I've done with him and others, is that defensiveness follows critical comments sort of, like night follows day. And, you know, if sometimes critical comments are absolutely needed sometimes, you know, pardon me for saying it. But sometimes, Todd, you spent too much on lattes at Starbucks last week. And now we're hosed. Because we got to get the thing for the kids lunches. And I'm a little pissed. Well, pissed off about that. Now, when you when if you're like most of us, Todd, you may not be because you're the curiosity guy. Um, most of us hear that message and go, oh, oh, no. And we want to defuse some of the responsibility for the mistake. So we say, well, you didn't, you did too many lattes last week. Therefore, it's not my fault. Or we say, you know, what, you know, it's only $15. In find that someplace, or whatever it is. And then what we know is that that moment, that moment, where you deflect responsibility, starts, starts this sort of satanic volleyball game. That just goes until it it burns out where people start criticizing and being defensive, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And that that white hot volleyball stays in the air because of defensiveness, you can't resolve that. So maybe a moment of curiosity could save us from this, I don't know.
Todd Kashdan 31:50
I adore hypotheticals and thought experiments. So thank you for playing with our our homoerotic relationship, raising kids and my coffee habit,
Jim Coan 32:00
my dream come true.
Todd Kashdan 32:04
I get to live in that house. So there's a few there's a, there's a, there's a few things in there pivot points in there that are really valuable for points of access to improve the quality of not just the interaction, but the relationship, one of them, the first thing that comes to mind is, we I always think of the importance of thinking of psychological time is something that we can play with and manipulate in our relationships. So let me break that down. Because that sounds much more sophisticated than actually. And this is, this will be very relevant to anyone that has kids will understand that psychological time has to be at your forefront, you are allowed to make me a culpas and make ships in whatever you said or did in the moment at any given time later. And so I mean, most of my existence, my, my eldest twins are now 15 years of age. More than 20% of her social interactions is me apologizing for something that I said earlier. And I think there's a great disconnect to the prior discussion, we just had this a great power, especially as their male role model, but dad in this relationship, that I can expose my vulnerability that I felt guilty that there's something that I did that I'm not pleased about myself. And I'm imperfect. And I try to rectify that because I care about you and the relationship. So that's, it's an important for the MIA culpa. But I can always do this, you have to remember this is, this is one of your many, many superpowers as a human being that is attempting to create healthy, flourishing relationships. Part of that is being turning your curiosity inward in terms of did that come off the way that I wanted to? What's What am I trying to attain with that statement with that level of emotion that expressed by ignoring what they said, by getting upset at their particular behavior that they engage in, all of this curiosity turn inward, is really important for the self to further self development. And by developing the self, I can then show that improvement in the very next statement that comes out of my mouth. Now it requires a pause to do that.
Jim Coan 34:13
and as you might settle your mind or settle your, your own emotions a bit
Todd Kashdan 34:20
Yeah, and one of the things is you can ask for the poet's. You know, this is something that I've learned over many years of therapy for myself is you, you have the agency to ask for a pause and say, You know what? I'm definitely overreacting right now. This is not how I want to respond. I just need a couple seconds to de discombobulate myself and go listen to Explosions in the Sky and some intro instrumental soundtracks, and then come back. Is that Is that okay with you for checking in and think about how much is said by the ask for the pause. I care so much about the relationship, that I recognize that there's some suckiness going on for me. And I'm asking for a plea because I know that we are equal contributors and partners in these decisions. I'm asking for a plea of like, Can I have some time because I care about how this comes across. And I'm also saying is, is that your emotions matter to me, your reactions matter to me all by me asking for just some time. So I can gather myself together and think about how I want to express myself.
Jim Coan 35:30
So So interestingly, so So practically, you know, I say, you spent too much money on the lattes, you have this moment where you're feeling defensive. And what you're telling me is that curiosity isn't only a matter of learning more about what I'm feeling. It's also a matter of learning more about what you're feeling, and learning why you're feeling that way. And sort of taking a step back a little bit, get let, giving yourself the space to explore answers to all of the above. But so many of us, I mean, I think in the heat of the moment, especially and this is a really good and important part about what your what you said about taking a pause. In the heat of the moment, you know, I'm not, I'm not curious about my home, defensiveness or rage or whatever. That's just what is right and I need to resolve it somehow. Right not have be curious about it, I need to make it go away. And there again, curiosity seems to allow things to be there, rather than forcing them to go away, if my spouse is mad at me. And I'm curious about that anger, I'm, that's, in some ways, a direct antidote to wanting to make it go away, it's actually wanting to know more about it. And if I am feeling enraged myself, I don't, you know, that feeling is uncomfortable and miserable and sour. So we may want it to be gone. But if we can orient our mind towards figuring it out, or towards at least wanting to figure it out, then making it go away, isn't necessarily on the table anymore.
Todd Kashdan 37:15
Yeah, we have some unpublished nerdy data showing that people that are more curious, are more granular and specific in being able to describe and label their emotional experiences. And because of that, there, they end up being more effective at harnessing their negative emotions toward pursuing goals that they care about. So it's combining a few. You know, one of the things we talked about being a well being researcher is, and I'm including myself in this category, all of us basically take one, one little tool, one little part of our personality, and we go to town on setting it and forget to think about the whole person the whole being. And so you can really start putting these things together. About you're curious about your internal states, you're curious about other people's external states. As a result of that, you tend to be more have a vested interest in understanding what it is specifically, you're feeling is this physiological arousal? Is it anger? Is it guilt? Is it sadness, disappointment, and you're thinking about the other person as well. And you're also thinking about how is my emotion as I raise it, or lower it influencing your experience. And you can see really quickly, this gets very complicated in terms of the amount of things to pay attention to, because there's a lot of if then statements that you're trying to explore. So if I show a little bit less anger, and soften the speed that I talk, and soften my eyes and kind of make them a little bit more welcoming, and I'm still irritated? What is that now doing to you? If I if I'm still angry, but I'm actually changing just the expression and speed and then the intensity of it, as it allowing you to reveal more information about what it is that you have a problem with me? Is it make you more likely to engage in reconciliation where we're trying to figure out solve the problem? Is it make you less likely wants you to avoid and escape the situation? These are these are all things that we have to read to learn the patterns, we also have to pay very close attention to when people deviate from the pattern and allow them I mean, this is this is the crux of the book I just wrote. We have to allow people to deviate from the prototypical way that they behave as opposed to labeling. You know, Jim, you're an introvert or extrovert, Jim, you're more agreeable or more cantankerous. Well, if we if we are in you know, multi year friendship, and we're still stuck with these globular categories we can't get into the specifics of when you're when you get so enraged because this is really important and valued area for you, you know, watch, probably if I had imagined while you're extremely kind, compassionate guy compared to me, my suspicion is seeing you with your girls is that if you saw if you saw someone really enraged at a child under the age of 10, that would push your buttons and you might even step in and say something. So you would become the assertive slash aggressive person as opposed to me, categorizing you prematurely as you're always the kind, compassionate guy. And then, and then I don't respond like, whoa, whoa, whoa, like, who's just Incredible Hulk. Jim, I just saw f9 You, what are you doing? But what is that you just blew up on that guy. You don't even know that guy? Like, who? Who are you? That's a very typical way that people behave in relationships. If I give space to be interested in how you deviate from your typical personality profile, then I'm like, Hmm, Jim, something you really care about? You cared about that enough that you were about to get into a fisticuffs of somebody interesting. Tell me more. And it's a different approach to kind of us relating to each other.
Jim Coan 41:13
You know, you're reminded me of one of my favorite movies, which is a movie that I highly recommend, if you haven't seen it, and is, in some ways all about curiosity. It's called My Dinner With Andre. And it's just two guys sitting and having a conversation. That's the whole movie. And people think, Oh, my God, that sounds like a nightmare, but it's actually not. And one of the things that, um, it's hilarious and vivid and full of really fascinating stuff, but near the end, they're talking about relationships. And Andre Gregory says, you know, this is the reason the reason that people have affairs is because they get, they get tired of What's New, and they want, they want to go back to what's old. And while he goes, what that's sort of the opposite of what I typically thought, he goes, no no no, when you have an affair, it's all the same old feelings over again and the little flirtations, and you know, you know, speaking about Schopenhauer or some nonsense, he says, and then he goes, if you're with somebody, for 40 years, you are really sailing into the unknown. You have no idea what's going to happen in your life. Because at some point, you can't replay all that old stuff. You can't do it. You You have to start playing new stuff. For real and for once and and it's a great irony that people believe that they're seeking new experiences when they go and have affairs.
Todd Kashdan 42:53
You just gave me aesthetic chills. Wait, so let me ask you a question that because there's something that always bugged me about I've been thinking a lot about rethinking masculinity, but also thinking about, you know, problems, problems with cultural norms, having written this book, which is how often have you talked to your friends or people that were in relationships longer than you and ask them about how they maintain a relationship versus how you guys meet?
Jim Coan 43:26
Yeah, yeah. Such a good question. I feel so lucky to have worked with John Gottman. And Bob Levinson and Laura Carstensen on some of these things, because, you know, we got to ask these questions of couples. And one of the most fascinating things I ever did was code, these conversations between elderly couples who've been married for longer than 40 years. And you know, my first set of assumptions going in as a as a 23 year old doing this work was that, oh, these guys must have had easy, awesome relationships. These guys must have had no problems because they lasted that long, they must have like some genetic gift, or they must just be super nice, or they must have had really easy lives. Nope, nope. deaths of children, multiple affairs, financial crises, you know, did you name it? Some say one or another of these couples that have been together for a long time had been through it? And and I'm almost to a couple this like 130 couples in that sample. They were glad they stuck it out. I'm not saying I've understood I understand what's going on with these couples yet. You know, there's even though these data were collected in the early 90s There's still so much to learn if you
Todd Kashdan 45:02
Did you guys do it did you guys have a report a qualitative analysis of the transcripts in terms of the frequency of how to Pete how people respond. And the aftermath of talking about their affairs, it kind of reminds me of bananas work, we were one couple, one member of the couple, I think it was, he said, gay couples, and one member of the couple died during the relationship. And then he started them six months later. And then the more that they left in describing the nostalgic experiences with their bereaved partner, was the better predictor that they were functioning afterwards. But what I like about what you're describing is, you don't need, there's actually this term that just just showed up at a New York Times article, a friend of mine showed it about ambiguous loss. And I love like when people give language to complicated things, which is, you don't have to wait for the bereavement. Sometimes we have this ambiguous loss, and the loss is our framework of a fully functioning relationship. And so we have, we have an idea of what it's supposed to be like, nobody cheats on each other. We're always going to be each other's best friends, we will always travel, if we're gonna travel to, you know, exotic locations will always choose each other first. And there's an ambiguous loss when that changes, instead necessarily bad as you're sick. But it's different. And that's it gets back to your Dinner With Andre, which is what well, how do I navigate these waters? I've never, I've never done this. And I've never heard anyone talk about it. Because no one talks about you're 12. And you're 23 in a relationship. So who do I go to what title of a self help book would even remotely come close to this? And I think this is the beauty of having these conversations is we don't talk about year 12. We talk about month one through four. And because of that, we don't have collective knowledge about how do we function as our identity is changing. The other person's identity is changing as a function of acquiring new information, new friendships, a loss of friendships, and new skills and aptitudes? And what are the odds that you and your partner are going to be on the same trajectory for friendships, knowledge, wisdom, skills, expertise, and development of social values, much less like ideological beliefs. All right, but yeah, I mean, it's, you know, it's virtually impossible. It's, if you're curious, it's thrilling. Did you know but you probably know, because you know more about the relationship literature than me. But one of my favorite findings was, it might have been even Austin, just doing some crazy meta analysis. But he was no sorry. It was Marvin Zuckerman. And it was the question was, are what? Which qualities, what personality attributes where romantic partners differ is the greatest predictor of relationship dissolution. And what Marvin Zuckerman found was one of the biggest predictors besides religiosity was sensation seeking, and which, which is a variant of curiosity, right? Basically, openness, the desire to seek new information experiences, and I'm willing to take legal, financial and social risks to acquire those experiences. So the more that you differ from your partner on the willingness to take risks to acquire new experiences, the greater likelihood you're gonna have a failed relationship.
Jim Coan 48:43
Well, that leads me to my last question, in some sense, and I could do this, like all day.
Todd Kashdan 48:51
Me too. I love you.
Jim Coan 48:56
Love you too. What do you think happens? What happens to a romantic relationship? Where curiosity is lacking?
Todd Kashdan 49:07
I mean, for me, you're starving a relationship of oxygen? Yeah, this is by if you're talking about the, your take, you're sticking to a monogamous relationship. You're choosing one person for the romantic elements of your life. And we'll put you know polyamory on the side for now. The notion that you are going to allow boredom to creep in and disinterest to creep in and your interests and proclivities to seek new knowledge and experience are going to be directed elsewhere to other people. To me, that's, that's a relationship that is starving. It's the hunger artists by Franz Kafka have they're sitting in the house with you, not being fed and day after day, your night not that you might miss the very slight show. ranges of what that does. But you're really you are, you're taking away the psychological needs that are essential to relationship, the need to belong, the need to feel that your uniqueness is respected and is going to give it a platform to express itself and need to feel as if you are competent being that's respected and dignified by your partner and have a feeling of a sense of autonomy that you can, you are being supported in doing things separate from your partner to be starved to curiosity is to lose the nutrients that fuels all those psychological needs.
Jim Coan 50:37
And that in the end to stifle the wind that that blows those sails through long periods of time, where things change, inevitably, and you have to figure out how to navigate those changes and and make them as you said, just coming around to the beginning of the conversation make them fun. Yeah, yeah.
Todd Kashdan 51:01
We can't. Just can't You can't, you can't underestimate fun. And I think is, is people spend a lot of time talking about almost every curiosity book I read, has some reference to how many questions preschoolers asked, which no scientist has ever studied, compared to adults. Right. And there's this big, significant decline, supposedly, probably, but what they don't talk about is the fun. The playfulness. Yeah. And I think there's there's a lot to be said, as, as an adult that there's this, this notion that we're supposed to be more somber and serious on a regular basis,
Jim Coan 51:39
or that we're just constantly trying to hold together this volatile ball of rage and disappointment.
Todd Kashdan 51:45
Yeah, we're, yeah, we're fragile creatures just trying to get by, there's no time for fun. There's too many things. There's counters to be cleaned. And there's, you know, there's email, emails to, you know, to toss into the archive to happen there. And I would say, really reprioritize the order of those activities and push fun higher up the rank order.
Jim Coan 52:07
Yeah, yes. All right. Well, thanks, Todd. That was really great. I wish we could go on all day.
Todd Kashdan 52:15
Yeah, you are just as good at this podcast as the last podcast.
Jim Coan 52:20
Alright, man.
Outro 52:24
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