Evolving with Nita Jain: Health | Science | Self-Development

Grip strength is a powerful predictor of longevity, linked to lower risks of cancer, heart disease, and all-cause mortality. Jain discusses Goodhart's Law and suggests a holistic approach to health, incorporating compound weightlifting, cardio, mobility exercises, and other health measures like waist-to-hip ratio, HbA1c, and lipids. The key takeaway is that grip strength is a side effect of a healthy, active lifestyle, not the cause of longevity. Get full access to Evolving with Nita Jain at www.nitajain.com/subscribe

Demo of Spooniverse Directory, a resource platform for patients and caregivers dealing with complex chronic illnesses like Long Covid, ME/CFS, POTS/dysautonomia, EDS, MCAS, and more. Explore here: https://www.spooniverse.directory/ Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/VtKA8YTdZMY Get full access to Evolving with Nita Jain at www.nitajain.com/subscribe

Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are often heralded as a transformative tool in healthcare. They are envisioned as the ultimate tool for streamlining medical services, promising efficiency and comprehensive patient care. However, the reality reveals a more intricate picture. Get full access to Evolving with Nita Jain at www.nitajain.com/subscribe

Delve into the intersection of privacy, ethics, and technology with Dr. Rand Hindi, CEO of Zama. We discuss Dr. Hindi's early fascination with encryption, the future of homomorphic encryption, and its profound implications for various sectors including healthcare and advertising. Hindi explains advancements in bioinformatics, his vision of ubiquitous computing, and how individualized medicine can benefit from encrypted data. He also shares his personal experiments with diet and fitness, promising advancements in medtech, and the future outlook on transhumanism. 00:00 Introduction to Privacy and Ethics 00:07 Meet Dr. Rand Hindi: Deep Tech Entrepreneur 00:53 The Personal Connection to Encryption 03:26 Homomorphic Encryption Explained 05:34 Advancements and Applications of Homomorphic Encryption 07:22 The Future of Ubiquitous Computing 09:36 AlphaFold and the Future of Biology 12:12 Homomorphic Encryption in Healthcare 14:47 Personal Experiments in Weight Loss & Fitness 19:41 The Role of AI in Job Automation 21:53 Ethereum and the Future of Blockchain 24:17 The Potential of Precision Psychedelics 26:55 Transhumanism and Extending Human Lifespan 34:43 Geoengineering and Climate Change 37:32 Final Thoughts and Farewell Get full access to Evolving with Nita Jain at www.nitajain.com/subscribe

The Quantified Self is an international community of people who use self-tracking tools and share an interest in self-knowledge through numbers. Quantified self experiments can track many different types of health data such as, mood, sleep, weight, step count, blood sugar, cholesterol levels, symptom severity, heart rate variability, and microbiome composition. Get full access to Evolving with Nita Jain at www.nitajain.com/subscribe

Why do commercial probiotics often fail to colonize the human gut? Contrary to what you may hear, it's not a matter of concentration. Get full access to Evolving with Nita Jain at www.nitajain.com/subscribe

In this episode of Evolving, Nita Jain talks with Richard Sprague, a software engineer, quantified self enthusiast, and co-founder of personal health tracking startups. Sprague discusses the complexities of the microbiome, the limitations of single-point microbiome testing, and the importance of longitudinal sampling. He shares insights from his extensive self-experimentation data collection, discussing fasting, probiotics, and the impact of alcohol on glucose levels. Sprague also touches on how personal science can empower individuals to optimize their health by tailoring approaches to fit their unique biological responses. The Journey into Personal Science Richard Sprague's journey into personal science began with his background in software engineering and an early fascination with computers. Observing the parallels between computer systems and human biology, he developed an interest in tracking genes and other biological markers. This led him to explore how personal experimentation can inform individual health insights—a theme central to the quantified self movement. Are We Human or Are We Computers? Sprague dives into the complexities of the human microbiome—an intricate system comprising trillions of microorganisms living in and on our bodies—and emphasizes that comparing the microbiome to a computer algorithm oversimplifies its complexity. The human microbiome is a dynamic system influenced by a myriad of factors, including genetics, environment, and lifestyle. Jain and Sprague discuss the challenges of microbiome testing and the importance of longitudinal sampling to capture a more accurate picture of the gut microbiome. Richard emphasizes that single-point microbiome tests can be misleading due to the natural diurnal variation and the inherent compositional problem in sampling. Promise & Pitfalls of Microbiome Testing One of the key pitfalls in interpreting microbiome results is the variability introduced at multiple stages of microbiome testing, from sample collection to data processing. Sprague highlights the significance of working with the same lab using consistent protocols to ensure reliable results. He also emphasizes the importance of understanding that many factors can skew microbiome readings, leading to potentially misleading conclusions. The Power of Self-Experimentation Sprague introduces the concept of personal science, or n-of-one studies, where individuals engage in self-experimentation to find what works best for their unique biology. He shares insights from his own experiments with kombucha, probiotics, and dietary interventions like fasting, highlighting how these experiences have informed his understanding of his microbiome and overall health. Embracing Curiosity and Mindfulness Sprague stresses the importance of maintaining curiosity and skepticism about health practices and recommendations and encourages listeners to be mindful of their own body and health, considering personal experimentation as a powerful tool for gaining insights and making informed decisions. Subscribe to the podcast at nitajain.com! Time Stamps 00:00 Richard Sprague’s Background 00:45 Journey into Tech and Personal Science 02:32 Complexity of Human Biochemistry vs. Computers 05:24 Microbiome Testing and Its Challenges 06:52 Pitfalls in Interpreting Microbiome Results 16:57 Personal Science and Self-Experimentation 25:06 The Impact of Microbiome on Health 25:47 Personal Microbiome Discoveries 27:19 Critical Windows for Microbiome Development 28:00 Manipulating the Microbiome 31:58 Microbiome and Disease Hypotheses 36:25 Fasting and Microbiome Health 39:11 Personal Science and Self-Experimentation 45:17 Surprising Personal Experiment Results 47:19 Conclusion and Final Thoughts Get full access to Evolving with Nita Jain at www.nitajain.com/subscribe

This episode features a raw, firsthand account of one person's devastating battle with COVID-19 that began in April 2020. Nita Jain chronicles her harrowing personal journey with Long COVID. What started as seemingly minor symptoms quickly escalated and evolved into a life-altering battle with the disease. Key Topics - The progression from mild symptoms to severe respiratory distress - The cyclical and evolving nature of Long COVID symptoms - Complications including lung scarring, dysautonomia, and neuropsychiatric effects - Navigating the healthcare system with pre-existing conditions - The isolation of chronic illness during a pandemic Notable Moments - The vivid description of respiratory symptoms: "The heaviness in my lower chest made me feel like my alveolar sacs had been replaced with bags of marbles" - The comparison to historical pandemics and the origin of "quarantine" - The contrast between those severely affected and those seemingly untouched by COVID - The struggle with tachycardia and cardiac monitoring - The emotional impact: "Upon waking in the morning, I distinctly recall the utter disappointment at having to face another day in such excruciating pain" Closing Thoughts The episode concludes with a call for greater empathy and inclusivity for those with complex chronic illnesses, emphasizing that "change starts with us, the people" and the importance of acknowledging the human stories behind the statistics. Get full access to Evolving with Nita Jain at www.nitajain.com/subscribe

In this week’s episode, writer, coach, consultant, and Ironman athlete Charlie Rogers talks about training for a triathlon, overcoming injury, maintaining an Olympic mindset, and building a portfolio career. Listen now on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, and YouTube. Chapter Summaries: [00:00:45] Charlie began running at the age of 14 when a coach recognized his raw talent. During his first year at university, he collapsed during a race. A cardiologist informed him that his high heart rates while running could be due to stress. [00:05:31] Biological mechanisms can help facilitate successful conditioning. Exercise creates changes in blood flow, which are detected by a protein called Piezo1. This protein then begins to remodel the vasculature in order to bring more oxygen and nutrition to your muscles, enabling them to grow and recover faster. [00:08:17] Physical exercise is necessary to keep our brains and blood vessels healthy, protect against cognitive decline, and ensure healthy longevity. Modern Western lifestyle isn't conducive to physical activity, so the onus is on us to put in the reps. [00:11:36] Charlie uses fitness trackers to record his workouts and monitor overall health. Tracking too much health data information can become overwhelming. Taking time to be present and sit in solitude can help combat data fatigue. [00:16:11] The oft-quoted goal of 10,000 steps per day has very little scientific backing and began as part of a marketing ploy for a Japanese Pedometer company in the 1960s. The typical daily step count for Charlie while training for triathlons is about 15,000. [00:19:45] We should be mindful of the risk of doing permanent bodily damage by pushing too hard during exercise. Most of us want to live longer but also maintain autonomy into later decades of life. Gaining more muscle during your 20s and 30s can help offset the 1% loss in muscle mass every year after the age of 50. [00:23:09] Charlie tracks his sleep quality using a sleep tracker on his watch but doesn't use this data to directly inform training routines. His coach, however, takes his sleep and body battery data into account. [00:28:14] Fitness trackers can be cost prohibitive and have limitations in terms of accuracy. Consumers are often faced with trade-offs between reliability and affordability. [00:31:17] The quantified self movement was born out of a desire to make sense of health data through n-of-1 experimentation. Accurately guessing our heart rates and listening to hunger cues relies on a skill called interoception, which describes our ability to sense internal signals from our bodies. We can rely on intuition while still being data-driven in our approach to health and fitness. [00:38:03] Charlie describes how he uses delayed gratification to stay motivated and push through obstacles like stomach cramps while running. Abiding by the aphorism “train hard, race easy” can help prevent lactate threshold issues. [00:42:27] Working out in a fasted state can backfire in women by blunting fat oxidation, but consuming adequate protein instead of carbohydrates before a workout can help women see more improvements in strength and lean body mass compared to post-exercise nutrition. It’s important to train with the same nutrition with which you intend to race. [00:47:00] As technology continues improving in terms of sportswear, more records will be broken. For example, Eliud Kipchoge’s shoes with carbon fiber plates allow runners to rebound faster. Accusations of doping often accompany an athlete’s rapid rise to success. [00:50:15] The gut microbiome determines how different foods and drugs are metabolized. Continuous glucose monitoring can help athletes determine which foods will keep their blood sugar levels stable and provide lasting energy. [00:54:40] Charlie has built a portfolio career as a self-employed writer, coach, and consultant. Although he’s not a professional athlete, Charlie takes his sport very seriously and invests a...

Are women naturally more nurturing or are these roles simply the result of social conditioning? Any discussion revolving around a given gender’s “natural” propensity towards certain roles is guaranteed to quickly get heated. In her book, Equal Partners: Improving Gender Equality at Home, Kate Mangino discusses how predefined gender norms hurt both men and women and outlines steps for how couples can move towards more equal partnerships. Get full access to Evolving with Nita Jain at www.nitajain.com/subscribe

Last time, we discussed how short periods of controlled stress can help us better adapt to future challenges. This week, we’re discussing strategies for stress management in order to maintain optimal function even during times of duress. Inherently, stress means we care about something important to us. The stress response can help us parse time more efficiently and focus more intently. Channeling the stress response to help overcome the situation at hand leads to more favorable health outcomes. Developing resilience and managing anxiety can drastically improve coping skills. Anticipating what could go wrong through the practice of negative visualization can help us become better prepared for future challenges. Intentionally seeking out regular, short periods of stillness and quiet in our daily lives can help prevent rumination and lower levels of stress. Get full access to Evolving with Nita Jain at www.nitajain.com/subscribe

Let’s talk about stress, baby And antifragility Let’s talk about all the good things and the bad things That may be Let’s talk about stress — My attempt at parodying a 1991 Salt-N-Pepa classic Stress is an unavoidable part of our daily lives. How can we mitigate stress so that it doesn’t cause adverse health outcomes? How can we leverage the benefits of stress in order to help us stay motivated? Is there a sweet spot when it comes to stress exposure? A Stressed Out Society Last time, I briefly mentioned the stress hormone cortisol and the role it plays in appetite regulation. When we’re stressed or sleep-deprived, cortisol levels spike, increasing appetite and causing us to crave comfort foods. Unfortunately, modern society is chock-full of stressors. Constantly getting inundated with text messages, emails, and Slack notifications can overstimulate your “fight or flight” response, leading to chronically elevated cortisol levels. This in turn can impair proper functioning of your prefrontal cortex, the region of your brain responsible for good decision-making. Inhibition of the PFC can cause us to engage in risky behaviors like texting while driving. Continuous engagement of your sympathetic nervous system also causes your adrenal glands to release adrenaline and norepinephrine, which speed up your heart rate and raise your blood pressure, respectively. This is why chronic stress can contribute to hypertension over time. The autonomic nervous system in your brain communicates with the enteric nervous system in your gut, which explains how stress can lead to digestive issues. Cortisol allows for the mobilization of your muscles at the expense of “rest and digest” activities such as the normal rhythmic contractions that move food along your digestive tract. Stress can also change the composition of your gut bacteria, which can affect your digestive and overall health. Chronic stress can dampen immunity, making you more vulnerable to infections and slowing the rate at which injuries heal. Curbing chronic stress is even essential for longevity, as high levels of stress are associated with shortened telomeres, the shoelace tip ends of chromosomes that measure a cell’s age. Telomeres allow for DNA replication and shorten with each successive cell division. When telomeres become too short, a cell can no longer divide and dies. Mindsets About Stress Psychologists define stress as the physical and mental response to events that we consider challenging or threatening. In other words, stress is a reaction to a disruptive stimulus, which means that the amount of stress we experience is largely dependent on how we appraise situations. When you miss a flight or someone schedules a last-minute meeting at work, you can either roll with the punches or get worked up. Stressful situations are inevitable, but the way in which we respond is what really matters. If we view stressful situations as challenges that we can control and master rather than as threats that are insurmountable, we will perform better in the short term and stay healthier in the long run. Stanford Psychology Professor Alia Crum describes mindsets as portals between conscious and subconscious processes. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, she conducted an experiment in which she asked volunteers to watch videos about the nature of stress. One group didn’t watch any videos, one watched videos that detailed the debilitating side of stress, and another group watched media that emphasized the enhancing nature of stress. The goal was to change people’s mindsets and observe the results. Crum found that just nine minutes of videos a week were enough to change people’s mindsets about stress and the incidence of physiological symptoms associated with stress like backaches, muscle tension, insomnia, and tachycardia. People who watched the enhancing videos reported better work performance and fewer symptoms compared to the group who watched the debilitating videos....

Last time, we discussed how letting go of our sense of self can significantly impact our lives by reducing mental suffering, improving productivity, and helping us experience the benefits of awe. This week, we’ll explore another question together: Can our mindsets make us healthier? Our beliefs can indeed exert surprising physiological effects. A recent randomized clinical trial discovered that educating children about the side effects of allergy immunotherapy greatly improved patient compliance and parental anxiety during treatment for peanut allergies. Oral immunotherapy is an emerging treatment for allergies in which patients are given gradually larger doses of an allergen in order to promote immune tolerance. The appearance of mild reactions to treatment like a scratchy throat or congestion can sometimes concern children and parents alike since these symptoms closely resemble those of a more severe allergic reaction like anaphylaxis. The anxiety can be so great that families may skip doses or stop treatment completely. In the study, telling children that side effects may be beneficial and even help overcome allergy in the long term allowed kids to successfully complete treatment and experience fewer side effects when exposed to actual peanuts. Why might a positive mindset change our response to something like allergens? Let’s dive a little deeper to find out. Mindsets 101 Our mindsets affect our perceptions of reality and are influenced by our upbringing, cultural values, and environments. Marketing, advertising, and health influencers shape our attitudes towards foods, exercise plans, and lifestyle practices. Many of our mindsets are simply the result of mimetic desire, meaning we imitate what others want. We desire what is socially desirable. Mimetic desire describes how social influences like parents, peers, teachers, media, and society impact nearly all our decisions from our career aspirations to the partners we choose. Dr. Alia Crum, Professor of Psychology at Stanford, studies how mindsets affect health and physical performance. She defines mindsets as core beliefs or assumptions about a domain. Whether we think stress is enhancing or debilitating influences the outcomes that follow. Whether we believe the nature of intelligence is fixed or malleable affects motivation and the ability to persist during academic challenges. Mindset vs. Placebo While the origins of the placebo effect may have been based on insufficient evidence, science suggests that the way we feel about something does in fact impact the way it affects us. We often forget that the total effect of a medical treatment is a combination of the chemical properties of that drug plus the placebo effect, which consists of social context, beliefs or mindsets, and our body’s natural physiological ability to heal. Mindset and Food Metabolism Do our beliefs change our bodies’ physiological response to food? Dr. Crum conducted a well-known study, sometimes called the “milkshake study,” in which she administered identical vanilla milkshakes to the same group of people separated by a week. Participants were initially told they were drinking a calorie-rich, indulgent milkshake full of fat and sugar. The second time, volunteers were told they were drinking a healthy, sensible, nutritious meal shake. Levels of a gut hormone called ghrelin were measured before and after drinking each set of milkshakes. Sometimes called the “hunger hormone,” ghrelin signals to the hypothalamus in the brain that it’s time to seek out food. After a large meal, ghrelin levels drop, telling your body that you’ve eaten enough. Scientists originally thought that ghrelin levels fluctuated in response to nutrient intake alone. Eat a cheeseburger, and ghrelin levels drop substantially. Eat a salad? Not so much. But Crum discovered something else entirely in her milkshake study. She found that telling people that they were drinking something indulgent caused their ghrelin levels...

Last time, we discussed the importance of loosening our attachment to our beliefs in order to have more productive discussions with people who disagree with us. Loosening our attachment to one belief in particular can alleviate mental suffering, boost our productivity through flow, and help us experience transcendence. What am I talking about? I’m talking about rejecting the idea of the self. No, I don’t mean those experiments where someone tries a series of progressively stranger tasks in order to become desensitized to the sting of rejection. I’m talking about letting go of the concept of the self completely. The Self Is an Illusion French philosopher René Descartes once famously said, “Cogito ergo sum”—I think, therefore I am. Or to be more precise, “Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum”—I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am. Some philosophers and neuroscientists argue that Descartes’ statement may be a non-sequitur, and the insecurity of needing affirmation of self-existence is likely in vain. According to Buddhist and Taoist philosophy, the idea of a stable, continuous self is an illusion, and a sizeable body of neuroscience research affirms this viewpoint. The self is likely a social construct consisting of our values, interests, hopes, fears, dreams, and relationships. If the self doesn’t exist, any attacks on our personal character are rendered meaningless. In an amusing scene from Friends, Rachel and Monica take offense when Phoebe suggests that Rachel is a pushover and Monica is high maintenance. When Rachel and Monica counter that Phoebe is flaky, Phoebe remains unbothered and concedes that she is indeed flaky. How exactly is this illusion created? In his book No Self, No Problem, Chris Niebauer explains that the left side of the brain is responsible for processing language, interpreting meaning, and crafting stories. Consider the word ‘book.’ What exactly does it mean? We might say it’s a medium for recording information with writing and images, often bound by a cover. But we can’t assign a quality that is universal to all books. Language is a tool that we use in order to interpret and understand reality; it gives us the illusion that the names we assign to things have actual meaning. But these names are simply shorthands or proxies to understand our surroundings. Perhaps René Magritte was trying to convey a similar idea in his infamous painting The Treachery of Images, which features the phrase “Ceci n'est pas une pipe” (French for "This is not a pipe") under the image of a tobacco pipe. Explaining the reasoning behind his painting, Magritte said: The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture ‘This is a pipe,’ I'd have been lying! The pipe in the painting is not an actual pipe but a visual representation of one. To borrow from Polish-American scholar Alfred Korzybski, “The word is not the thing.” Niebauer points out that the illusion of the self is similar to that of a mirage in a desert—you observe, visualize, and experience it; it’s just not actually there. If you try to answer the question “Who am I?,” your left brain will likely come up with a multitude of categories to define your selfhood such as gender, occupation, religion, values, and interests. But remove categories from the equation, and it becomes significantly harder to pin down the essence of who you are. The “I” is an illusion extrapolated from the language the left brain uses to process reality. Our left brains even assign meaning to various visual inputs. The Rorschach inkblot test is a way to conceptualize how this works. The Rorschach asks users to look at inkblot patterns on paper and report what they see. The act of ascribing meaning to these random images is a way to look at how the left brain works in real-time. Given an identical inkblot image, two people can have vastly different interpretations—informed by...

Last week, we discussed how techniques such as affect labeling and physiological sigh can help us to stay calm when triggered and get into a better state of mind. But how do we go about the messy business of actually engaging with people who think differently from us? British philosopher Bertrand Russell once wrote, Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter. Sometimes, getting through to people feels impossible with both sides bolstered by a profligate confidence in their firepower. What should we do if we want to avoid living in an echo chamber but also prefer to avoid confrontation? How can we communicate our viewpoints both effectively and gently? A Case of Cognitive Dissonance Imagine two Americans named Marsha and Alexandria. Marsha supports the right to bear arms and believes abortion is equivalent to murder. Alex supports gun regulation and a woman’s right to choose. Which person is more likely to support capital punishment? Based on the normal distribution of political opinions, most of us would say Marsha is more likely to support capital punishment because of her conservative views. But how do certain political ideologies get grouped together? Why would Marsha support the death penalty if she is pro-life? And why would Alex support individual freedom when it comes to abortion but not gun ownership? How do we explain the cognitive dissonance? The answer may lie in the factors that govern our decision-making process. We may be more primed to accept certain policy positions depending on our genetics, gender, ethnic background, upbringing, personality, and socioeconomic status. In a 2003 paper, Jost and colleagues from Stanford University argued that personality traits can predict whether someone is more likely to identify as liberal or conservative. In their meta-analysis, the researchers found that conservatives tend to have a higher need for order, structure, and closure compared to liberals and also rank lower on measures of tolerance for ambiguity, complexity, and openness to experience. In addition, conservatives were more likely to fear threats to social stability and score higher on measures of death anxiety. Finding Common Ground Moral Foundations Theory, put forth by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, argues that humans across cultures share a common core of ethical beliefs upon which we build different narratives and identities. How those values are expressed and the relative importance we assign to them can differ, however. Some people may value adherence to authority above freedom of expression and thereby condemn flag burning as morally reprehensible. Others may place freedom of speech at the top of the moral hierarchy and therefore condone actions that reject patriotism in favor of equality. The five universal moral foundations are: * Harm/care — leads to disapproval of individuals that inflict pain and suffering on others * Fairness/reciprocity — involves issues of equality and justice * Ingroup/loyalty — based on our attachment to groups (such as our family, church, or country) and underlies virtues of patriotism * Authority/respect — tendency to create hierarchical structures of dominance and subordination and appeals to values of leadership, obedience, and tradition * Purity/sanctity — evokes emotions of disgust in response to biological contaminants, such as spoiled food or chewing tobacco, and social contaminants, such as spiritual corruption or hedonism, underlies the notion that the body is a temple Several studies have shown that liberals and conservatives differ in the relative value they assign to various foundations. Liberals are more likely to prioritize considerations of harm and fairness while conservatives tend to place a higher value on the foundations of ingroup, authority, and purity. Liberals are likely to deem actions immoral if they cause...

We’ve all experienced the flood of negative emotions when someone says or does something triggering. It can often be difficult to remain calm when faced with attacks on our personal character. Sometimes criticism has less to do with us and more to do with the lens through which someone is looking—in light of their own values, hardships, and experiences. Before we rush to defend ourselves in the heat of the moment, we might consider the following: Man in the Mirror The self-serving bias describes our tendency to attribute positive events and successes to our own character traits but blame negative results on external factors unrelated to our character. Thinking this way can place your self-esteem on an emotional roller coaster, bobbing up and down with the ebb of the tide. When things are going well, you’re God’s gift to humanity and deserve praise. When things fall apart, you’re the victim who deserves better. This constant sense of deserving is mentally draining and unconducive to personal growth. If we don’t acknowledge our shortcomings, we’re less likely to learn from our mistakes and avoid repeating them in the future. Besides affecting individual behavior, self-serving bias presents with systemic effects on a global scale as well. A study conducted by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University examined the role of self-serving bias in climate change negotiations and found that college students in both China and the United States held nationalistic beliefs about which countries should reduce greenhouse gas emissions and by how much. However, when researchers disguised the problem and the identity of the parties involved, students in both countries had similar ideas about what constitutes a fair distribution of burdens. Similarly, if we try to judge situations more impartially by removing ourselves from the equation, we can come up with more equitable solutions. A similar but closely related concept is the actor-observer bias. The main difference is that the actor-observer bias focuses on both our behaviors as well as the behaviors of others while the self-serving bias only addresses our own behaviors. Fundamental attribution error, which we discussed last week, similarly addresses just one half of the equation, the behavior of others, while actor-observer bias incorporates both. Actor-observer bias explains our tendency to judge others by different standards than we judge ourselves. The hypocrisy of actor-observer bias means that if you run a red light, it’s an honest mistake, but if someone else runs a red light, they are recklessly endangering the lives of others. Your actions are always justified, and your motives are always pure. But if someone else exhibits the same behavior, they are malicious and corrupt. We tend to attribute our negative behaviors to external forces outside our control and assume that the negative behaviors of other people are the result of internal factors under their conscious control. If you fail a test, it’s because the teacher didn’t explain the material properly. If someone else fails, it’s because they didn’t study hard enough. Stephen Pinker describes a phenomenon known as the “moralization gap.” During conflicts, we tend to unconsciously inflate perceptions of ourselves and underestimate the goodwill of others. Psychology studies have shown that both victims and perpetrators distort the facts of a situation to fit their respective narratives. Moreover, close friends of victims (third parties) are usually less forgiving than victims themselves (first parties). Keeping cognitive biases in mind can help us reorient our perspective and remind us that the things we experience are not necessarily personal. When you fail at something, it doesn’t mean you are a failure as a person; it simply means you are a person who happens to fail sometimes. Criticisms can be seen as opportunities for improvement rather than personal attacks on our character. Putting Perspective Into Practice Now...

Have you ever found yourself surprised by someone’s behavior? Perhaps a friend who had always shown you kindness betrayed you by disclosing private information. Maybe old classmates at a high school reunion felt unrecognizable from when you last saw them. Maybe you surprised yourself when you acted in a manner that was out of character. Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover We often make assumptions about other people, but human judgment is extremely prone to fundamental attribution error, the tendency to ascribe traits to individuals based on behaviors we observe. If someone donates to a food bank, we may assume that person is generous. If someone with a stutter has trouble expressing themselves during a job interview, we might erroneously assume that person is incompetent in other areas. Conversely, excellence in one discipline is not always transferable. Folklore suggests that human behavior should be relatively easy to predict. Norwegian philosopher Jon Elster writes in his book Explaining Social Behavior: People are often assumed to have personality traits (introvert, timid, etc.) as well as virtues (honesty, courage, etc.) or vices (the seven deadly sins, etc.). In folk psychology, these features are assumed to be stable over time and across situations. Proverbs in all languages testify to this assumption. “Who tells one lie will tell a hundred.” “Who lies also steals.” “Who steals an egg will steal an ox.” “Who keeps faith in small matters, does so in large ones.” “Who is caught red-handed once will always be distrusted.” If folk psychology is right, predicting and explaining behavior should be easy. This assumption of stable character traits also underlies the aphorism, “Once a cheater, always a cheater.” But singular actions cannot be used to determine character. Personality is an evolving, fluid entity, not a concrete constant. If we develop expectations of people based solely on what we observe, we are working with limited information and setting ourselves up for disappointment. Turn, Turn, Turn If past behavior isn’t a good predictor, then what is? Freakonomics by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven Levitt might provide a possible answer. The central tenet of the book is that if you understand someone’s incentives, you can predict their behavior. We can see this playing out on the world stage. Why would a large democracy like India refuse to take a stand against the atrocities committed in Ukraine? For the very same reason that China is maintaining its diplomacy. India’s allegiance with Russia stems back to the 1950s when the Soviet Union supported Indian sovereignty over the disputed territory of Kashmir. China’s leader seeks a future in which Taiwan is reunited with the motherland and would expect Russia's support should that goal be accomplished by means of military invasion. Neither country wants to anger an ally, so both are maintaining silence out of convenience. The same principle of incentivization applies to individuals, as personality traits are highly context-dependent. Your personality around your boss on a Monday morning is likely different than your behavior on a Friday night spent with your close friends. Elster explains, “Behavior is often no more stable than the situations that shape it.” He describes a social psychology experiment in which theology students were asked to prepare for a brief presentation in a nearby building. Half the group was told to discuss the Good Samaritan parable while the other half was assigned a neutral topic. Each group was further subdivided into two more where half believed they were late and half were told they had plenty of time. On their way to the other building, subjects came upon a man in apparent distress. Among students who believed they were late, only 10 percent offered assistance, but in the other group, 63 percent tried to help. In other words, preparing a talk about the Good Samaritan did not make students more likely to behave like one. All the students...

As many of you may already be aware, a bill making Daylight Saving Time (DST) permanent by November 2023 has already made its way through the Senate. The decision has been met with mixed emotions. Some argue that permanent standard time is the better option and some are simply happy to no longer have to change the clocks twice a year. Arguments in favor of permanent standard time and more early morning light exposure include reduced disease risks, safer bus stop environments since kids won’t be waiting in the dark, and fewer traffic fatalities involving schoolchildren. Permanent DST, on the other hand, finds a strong advocate in big business since longer daylight hours lead to more consumer spending. As far as potential health benefits go, some research suggests that later sunsets allow children to get more exercise. Horacio de la Iglesia, a neuroscientist who studies biological clocks at the University of Washington, believes that the attempt to make DST permanent will likely fail, citing the precedent of January 1974 when the United States implemented permanent daylight saving amid a national energy crisis. Within a week, school boards were flooded with complaints from parents that children were going to school in darkness. An experiment that was designed to last two years was instead terminated in a matter of months. Public support for DST plummeted from 79% in December 1973 to 42% in February 1974. Iglesia argues that sleep disruption hits adolescents especially hard since they naturally have an advanced cycle. Teenagers don’t begin to secrete melatonin until much later in the evening (around 11 p.m.) compared to adults. For this reason, many advocacy groups have historically proposed delayed start times for middle and high school students. In addition, cortisol regulation across the board is resistant to changes in clock time with daylight saving. Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too? The diversity of opinions concerning DST can teach us a lot about the art of negotiation. How, you might ask? Let me explain. A successful negotiation has three defining characteristics: * Envy-free: neither party would willingly trade their share for the other share * Equitable: neither party feels shortchanged since both shares are of equal value * Efficient: resources have been divided in a way to maximize utility Let’s consider a simplified example—dividing a cake in half between two minions, Kevin and Bob. There is a single knife position that Kevin would consider a 50/50 split and another knife position that Bob would consider a 50/50 split. If the knife positions are the same, simply cut the cake there. If not, start sliding both knives toward each other at the same speed until they meet. This point is the ideal split. The solution is envy-free since neither Kevin nor Bob prefer the other person’s piece and equitable since both pieces have the same perceived value. The arrangement is also efficient in the sense that one party would be worse off if the knife were moved to a different position. If we consider the more complex issue of choosing one time standard to adhere to as a nation, the above approach obviously wouldn’t work, but different negotiation tactics have different strengths and weaknesses. The “I cut, you choose” method, sometimes known as the shotgun clause in legal vernacular, is oftentimes envy-free but not equitable or efficient. If we return to the cake analogy, this approach means that if Kevin cuts the cake, Bob gets to choose which piece he wants. Kevin is incentivized to make both pieces as even as possible since he doesn’t know which piece he will end up with. But Bob has a distinct advantage as the chooser since he may value one piece more than the other, allowing him to walk away with more than what he considers half. In this way, the shotgun clause isn’t equitable. Moreover, the division may not suit each person’s preferences. Imagine that the cake is half vanilla and half chocolate, and Kevin...