How would you approach change if you saw it as BOTH a practice AND mindset? Katy Milkman has researched this and it’s clear she’s on to something. In today’s conversation and in her bestselling book, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be, Katy Milkman shows us how change is BOTH a combination of acquiring practical skills AND a rewiring our brains through new behaviors. Katy Milkman is a Professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and ALSO holds an appointment at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine. Her research uses psychology and economics to explore how we can change for the good. Katy has an accessible, practical demeanor and she’s able to distill complex bodies of research into easy to digest insights and she’s refreshingly honest about her own struggles with change. This episode is full of practical tools and helpful insights, and she also talks about how she’s learned to be more confident and assertive in the male-dominated world of higher education, and science. She’s also one of those people you meet in life and talking with them is this lovely ride. And when you’re done you realize - HEY…I just learned A TON and that was really fun, too! Show notes: How To Change: The Science of Getting From Where You Are to Where You Want To Be: https://www.katymilkman.com/book Spotify playlist for this episode: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2kjrnKaHpWmwmPJra47fjW?si=dae22796abb64144 Tell Me Something True is a 100% independent podcast. There are no corporations or advertisers backing this community. We are 100% funded by the TMST community. Support TMST today so you can hear the uncut interviews, attend private events with Laura and help keep TMST ad-free: https://tmst.supercast.com/
Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen
Katy Milkman on How to Change for the Good
[00:00:00] Laura McKowen: Hey, it's Laura. If you're listening to this, you're not hearing the complete unedited version of this conversation. If you want in on that, you can get it by becoming a TMST plus member. Just head over to our website tmstpod.com and click support. All right. Enjoy the show.
[00:00:29] Hey there, Laura, here, there are those people you meet in life and talking with them is just this lovely ride. And when you're done and you realize, hey, I just learned a ton and that was really fun too. That's today's show. Katie Milkman is a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
[00:00:48] And she also holds an appointment at Penn's Perelman School of Medicine. Her research uses psychology and economics to explore how we can change for the good. [00:01:00] The New York times set her bestselling book, “How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be,” was one of the eight best books for healthy living in 2021.
[00:01:11] Katie has such an accessible, practical, demeanor about her, which is amazing considering how brilliant and successful she is. Those two things do not always go together. She's able to distill complex bodies of research into easy to digest insights. And she's honest about her own struggles with change.
[00:01:33] This episode is full of practical tools and helpful insights. And she also talks about how she's learned to be more confident and assertive in the highly male dominated world of higher education and science. I hope you enjoy hanging with Katie as much as I did.
[00:01:57] Laura McKowen: Here we go. Is it fair to say the work you do is [00:02:00] understanding how and why people do what they do and how and why people either change or don't change.
[00:02:06] Katy Milkman: Yeah. I think that's a great description. And I would say, and figuring out how to help. How to help, because a lot of the work is related to actually helping people get from where, you know, whatever their goal is. How do they execute?
[00:02:28] Laura McKowen: What animates you about the process of change? Why, how did you, why do you like this so much?
[00:02:34] Katy Milkman: Oh, that's interesting.
[00:02:40] I think, first of all, just, you know, we all have the things we're intrinsically interested in, right? Like my husband's an astronomer. He's intrinsically interested in how old is the universe and you know who isn't, by the way, like those things are very intrinsically interesting, but you know, he wakes up and that's what, those are the kinds of questions he asks him, like, is there life out there?
[00:02:59] And how can I find it? And can I design an instrument that will be sensitive enough to detect things in the atmosphere of another planet. And I don't wake up thinking about those questions, even though I also am intrinsically interested. I wake up thinking about people and people's problems and how can we, you know, why, why can't my friend quit smoking and you know, why, why can't I get in shape as you know, why can't the student hit their deadlines, even though they're so smart and what could help.
[00:03:32] So I think, you know, we're, we're sort of wired with different things that itch for us intrinsically. And my intrinsic itch has always been about actually people and friends and understanding like how, how can we get better? I just never realized that could turn into my career because I was, I studied engineering.
[00:03:51] I was very practical and quantitative. It took a lot of wandering to figure out, wait a minute. This thing that I sort of [00:04:00] wake up in the morning wondering about actually could be a scientific career. So I think that's, that's the short answer.
[00:04:08] Laura McKowen: What have been the hardest parts about change for you and, and like, how has your work impacted and those areas?
[00:04:15] Katy Milkman: I feel like one of the most fun things about what I study is that it actually does help me. So I like selfishly at some level I'm doing me-search. I mean, I'm not right. Like for instance, I did a bunch of work on encouraging vaccination. I was the first in line to get a vaccine. The minute I was eligible, so I didn't need any encouragement, but some of the things that I study really are my own problems.
[00:04:41] And once we discover solutions, I put them in place in my own life. And example is, and actually this one went the other way. It was something I started doing. Then I realized, wait, this could be research. As a graduate student, I really struggled at the end of a long day of classes [00:05:00] and engineering and economics, business to motivate myself to move, to be physically active, even though I'd been an athlete my whole life. And I knew that was so important to my productivity and my mental health, I would come home from a long day, just like wanting to curl up on the couch and binge watch TV. And I came up with a strategy of only letting myself enjoy indulgent entertainment while I was exercising.
[00:05:26] And it totally transformed so many things for me. I stopped procrastinating at the end of a long day after work. I'd come home. I go straight to the gym. I'd indulge. I actually did it with audio books. I got really into listening to things like Harry Potter and the Alex Cross series. And I wanted to hear what would happen next.
[00:05:41] I have a great workout. Time flies at the gym. I'd get home. And then there's no more procrastinating because I've gotten my indulgence in. So I now call that temptation bundling. I ended up doing research, showing it wasn't just me, that it helped, but that when we combine something that's fun with a chore so we can look forward to that chore.[00:06:00]
[00:06:00] It, it actually can solve multiple problems. It can get us to waste less time and engage more with something we would otherwise procrastinate on doing or, or dread and not do at all. So that's sort of a backwards example, but there's lots of other things where by learning the science of behavior change it has helped me become so much more productive because I have all the barriers sort of big thing in this research for me, has been realizing the key to success is that you have to understand what is the specific obstacle and a context that's preventing you from getting to your goal and address that.
[00:06:38] And the obstacles differ, right? Temptation bundling won't always work. If you're forgetful and that's the reason that you aren't taking your medication, you don't need to combine the meds with something fun. You just need reminders. Right? So depending on what the barrier is, there's all these different solutions.
[00:06:53] And as I've learned more and more about the research, there are so many hacks that I now implement in my own life [00:07:00] because I really do like, I’m forgetful. I procrastinate. I have bad habits. I, you know, sometimes I lack confidence. I've been, as a woman in a predominantly male field, there are certainly rooms I've walked into where I was super intimidated and finding ways to build confidence, to have a voice was important in that setting.
[00:07:19] Totally different than temptation bundling. Well, you talk about that. Oh my gosh.
[00:07:26] Laura McKowen: Just if you can name some, you know, I think that's we have a lot of women in our audience and it's that dynamic that a lot of people are faced with. I don't think there, there aren't a lot of tools that I've read specific tools that go here's how you could think about that and maybe address it and change it.
[00:07:45] Katy Milkman: I don't know that I have great hacks for in the moment. Well, I can tell you a couple of things that people have studied that I think are interesting. My best solutions are more systemic in that like, I have changed the way I interact with [00:08:00] colleagues and the colleagues I've drawn close, and that has in turn changed my confidence.
[00:08:04] So to be a little more concrete about that, One thing that has been life-changing for me really and wonderful. And this career where I have largely been, there are other groups that have faced far worse stereotypes, I should say, than women in business academia. You know, we're starting to make some strides on inclusion of women.
[00:08:26] The inclusion of underrepresented minorities is a far bigger challenge. So I don't want to overstate what I've been up against, but certainly being alone is hard. I was the only tenured woman in my department, save one for a number of years. And the other tenured woman rarely came to meetings perhaps because she'd been alone for so long.
[00:08:51] So there were many times that I would go into a room without windows for a, sort of a secret senior faculty vote. And there were no other women in that room, but [00:09:00] tons of men and I found that tough. Okay. So one of the things that I have done that has been amazing and there's research that backs this up is I have a group of women.
[00:09:11] We call ourselves an Advice Club. We started calling ourselves the No Club, but now we've become more of an Advice Club. Well, it came out of there's this research that Linda Babcock at Carnegie Mellon and others have done showing that women are bad at saying no to non promotable tasks when we're asked to do them.
[00:09:30] So a non promotable task is like office housework, right? Like you take the notes in the meeting or could you schedule the holiday party? Could you sit on this committee, no one actually cares about, and that you won't get promoted for and you won't get a raise for, but somebody's gotta do it. And women get tapped to do that more and are more likely to say yes.
[00:09:46] Because we don't want to break people's stereotypes about being agreeable and, and taking on those kinds of roles and it has consequences. Linda has done really interesting research on this topic. She presented about it and she [00:10:00] said my personal solutions, I have a no club. It's a group of women. We reach out to each other when we get an ask just for something that's outside of our immediate job responsibilities to get sort of a sanity check and help thinking about how do I respond? Because it's often easier to advocate as an outsider than an insider. And to see what's a good decision. What's not. So we, we copied and pasted that, which PS is one of my other favorite strategies.
[00:10:22] Like when you hear a good idea, don't just revel in it. Like do it yourself. Which we don't do enough. It turns out. So we formed a no club with a group of other women who were at other universities, but had similar career goals, both female faculty members at top business schools wanted to excel at research, teaching and communication about science.
[00:10:46] And we reach out to each other. When we ever, we have a challenge and it's done all these magical things. And now we reached out to each other about more than just knows. It's sort of its general advice. One magical thing is I have a community, even though my immediate [00:11:00] group of colleagues, wasn't filled with people who look like me, I do have now.
[00:11:05] Feeling of community with this other group we've created. So that gives me social support and validation that people like me do excel and exist in orbit in this world. I get wisdom from these amazing women free consulting, right? Like how great is that? So I learned so much from them and then here's this added benefit that I'd say snuck up on me.
[00:11:26] And now I understand better from doing research, in the process of giving advice to these awesome women. When they came to me with the challenges that they were facing, I actually built confidence and competence myself. And so I've actually done some research on this with Lauren Eskreis-Winkler from the Kellogg school at Northwestern.
[00:11:45] She had this insight that actually often when we give advice to others, it boosts our confidence. And if we're working on a similar goal, If somebody else is willing to listen to us, we see, well, I must not be so clueless. [00:12:00] Its like, you know, big confidence boost there. If you're a coach, it forces you to introspect deeply about things you might not think about.
[00:12:07] If you didn't have to tell someone else what to do. And then once you've told someone else like, no, you shouldn't sit on that committee or like this, you know, this is a bad idea for your career. When you face a similar challenge, you're gonna feel hypocritical. Follow your own advice. So we've shown, um, we showed in one study that having high school students randomly assigning them to just give other younger peers, 10 minutes of advice on how to study more effectively, actually improved the advice, givers, own grades.
[00:12:35] So the advice club is magic. That has been a huge deal for me in terms of improving my confidence. And I think competence and happiness in a male dominated field. And it was very deliberately formed of other women, people who I felt were lacking in my sort of most immediate community, but I created a community that I needed that gave me that missing [00:13:00] piece.
[00:13:01] Laura McKowen: I love this. That seems so obvious, but what a gift can I ask you something nerdy and specific about like, how do you communicate with each other? Is it an open-ended like email chain? Do you have a text thread, like what, how does it look?
[00:13:19] Katy Milkman: Oh, it's all of the above, but I would say it started with email.
[00:13:22] Like, yeah, let's get into the practicalities. Cause you can only copy and paste if you knew exactly how to do something. The tactics that we do, we started over email and that's still primarily where it lives and it's like a tag that goes in front of an email. Either no club or advice club, depending on what the challenge is.
[00:13:39] We also have a joy club, which we literally added at the start of this year to share positive news with each other. Because we realized we needed that too. So the club keeps expanding its function, but you put the tag in front of the email that, you know, you've gotten that has some sort of ask or just, you need to write an email because it was given you got an oral ask and then you forward.
[00:13:57] And then the group weighs in. [00:14:00] Handle it this way and all this way, and you provide some context, should I do this? Or like, I'm struggling with this aspect. And then everybody jumps on and, and we all prioritize it. Like these are the most important emails we get all day. So you get a response in 30 minutes.
[00:14:12] Normally, maybe faster. Sometimes we go on text. You know, we have a text chain too. And actually during the pandemic we started having, I'd say quarterly zoom calls just to sorta check in, see how everybody's doing. Talk through the challenges of pandemic life, which, and there were many, new ones and I should say actually the women in my amazing group, I should name them.
[00:14:32] Dolly Chugh at NYU and Modupa Akinola at Columbia University also do a lot of research on diversity and inclusion. And so the last two years have been particularly additionally stressful due to wanting to contribute to that dialogue productively, and also just being overwhelmed with asks. And so we've, that's part of the reason we also now talk and check in with each other.
[00:14:57] Laura McKowen: I love it. I love it so much. [00:15:00] I run a sobriety support community and it being someone in recovery, I was really interested in this part of your book because I have felt that and seen that the fact that you sharing, even your experience and just what has worked for you, not advice, but just, this has been my experience, even for people that have one day of sobriety.
[00:15:25] It is such a massive factor in them feeling part of feeling like they have something of value that they can actually be of service. I mean, I have learned that from my own experience, how beneficial that is, but I just love to see that with research backing it, because I know that it's true. Absolutely.
[00:15:42] Katy Milkman: Absolutely. And of course, alcoholics anonymous right, this is such an important part of their, I think what they've built, which is incredible. The idea of having someone you are responsible for and who you sponsor. [00:16:00] I think, I think people still assume that the primary function of that is the mentee, but there is this huge benefit from being a sponsor based on this research.
[00:16:11] And I, and I do think, you know, from what I've read, that there is an understanding of that from the people who designed the program. I'm glad you loved it. And I just want to double click and say, I didn't mention, but that giving is so important to our satisfaction and happiness. And there's just so much research from giving money to giving time that it makes you happy.
[00:16:33] And we underestimate how much joy we will get when we give to others, as opposed to, you know, buying ourselves stuff or pampering ourselves, everybody says like, pamper yourself, turns out it's actually better to pamper someone else in terms of your own happiness, which is really neat.
[00:16:51] Laura McKowen: Okay, so that's interesting because I wouldn't.
[00:16:55] There has to be some contextual specifics to that because [00:17:00] what are women told.
[00:17:01] Katy Milkman: Yes, no, absolutely. So maybe more clear, there's really wonderful research showing. If you're given, say, you know, $5 to spend on yourself and told to go, go spend that money on yourself versus $5 to spend on someone else. You get more happiness, but you don't appreciate that when you spend it on someone else.
[00:17:18] That's not to say you shouldn't, you know, you should only care for about other people and do things for other people and never look out for yourself. Absolutely not. But we do under-appreciate to a large extent the way, if, if we're thinking about how could I spend my money or time to increase my happiness, sometimes it's doing something for someone else that can bring us more.
[00:17:53] [00:24:57] Mikel Ellcessor: Hi, I'm Michael. I'm the executive [00:25:00] producer of tell me something true. And I co-created the show with Laura. We built TMST and our online community with the hope of creating a sane spot on the internet. We're really passionate about the ad-free nature of this work. Our belief is that this project worked best if we're not hustling to keep advertisers happy, and we keep our attention on you, the TMST community, and this is where you can play a major role. TMST plus is the membership group that helps to keep this podcast going. Whether it's through a monthly membership or a one-time contribution, TMST plus members are vital to this experiment. As a TMST plus member, you get to join Laura for member only events, send in questions for the guests, hear the complete unedited interviews and connect with other TMST community members. You know, sometimes we feel like we can't make a difference in the world. With the TMST [00:26:00] plus membership, you can be keeping this space alive and thriving for a one-time gift or for as little as 10 bucks a month, you can find the link in the show description and then please head over to TMSTpod.com right now to support the show. And thanks.
[00:19:22] Laura McKowen: For a lot of people in this community, not everybody, but a lot of people in that listened to this show because just the history of my work are people that are facing or have face changing addictions, substance use, destructive behaviors, process addictions, and things like that. One of the things that gets a lot of attention is the date that you stop.
[00:19:47] January is a huge, quit time for people or resolution time. But I don't know if you've seen this research or heard of it, but Strava, which is like the behavior app surveyed 800 million [00:20:00] data points. And that most people like some upwards of 80% of people quit their resolution by January 12th. I'm wondering, what is your research and experience tell us about the role of like a fresh start and how can we use a fresh start, but also not get strangled by failing that fresh start.
[00:20:23] Katy Milkman: Yeah. Both great questions. Let me sort of unpack them and go one at a time. First I'll talk about fresh starts and their power.
[00:20:33] And then let's talk about this challenge that you raised with the Strava data. You know, and how far does it get us? So the magic of the fresh start, which you see in January is this motive it gives us to try to, to pursue a goal that we might otherwise have given up on. There are many moments, January 1st, being the most famous.
[00:20:54] When we feel like we have a clean slate, we feel like we've got closure on one chapter in [00:21:00] life and we're opening another. And so this new beginning gives us that sense that, you know, last year I tried to quit smoking. I tried to quit drinking. I tried to get in shape and I failed, but that was the old me.
[00:21:11] And this is the new me in the new year. And it's going to be different this time. That motivates us to try. And we see that not just on January 1st, we see to some extent at the start of a new week, the start of a new month, um, when peace people celebrate birthdays, the start of a new semester for students following some holidays that we associate with fresh.
[00:21:31] So think more labor day and less Valentine's day. Right? So some, some holidays have that sense and some don't. So at those dates, we see spikes in searches for the term diet on Google. We see people go to the gym more. We see people set goals online about everything from their health to their finances and their education.
[00:21:50] So it happens naturally. And we can nudge people like if we highlight a fresh start date that they might not have been paying attention to. We we flag the first day of spring on the [00:22:00] calendar, uh, as opposed to labeling it, you know, the third Thursday in March, we call it the first day of spring, call it out.
[00:22:05] That becomes more of an attractor for a moment when someone would want to start a new goal. So that's the fresh start effect. It gets. Trying and I think that's great. The second challenge is though, okay. Most things don't just require, you know, a little enthusiasm that you briefly dredge up out a fresh start date follow through is a lot more than that, right?
[00:22:29] I mean, there's a few things actually that are like a one and done, and those, by the way, I always say like, get those done on January 1st or on your birthday, right. Sign up for the colonoscopy. You know, put your debt enrolled in the 401k when you've got that burst of enthusiasm and you can do a one and done that carries you forward.
[00:22:46] Great. But for most things, we need some sort of sustained effort and the fresh start effect doesn't provide that. And in fact, almost by definition, it's a brief fleeting feeling of a fresh start and then it leaves you high and dry. If you haven't set yourself up for [00:23:00] success with other tools beyond a little extra motivation.
[00:23:03] So I've never been surprised that a lot of these fail given that there's so much more in the research on change that you need to do, and just feel motivated to give something a shot, especially when we're talking about something like addiction. It's hard. Right?
[00:23:18] Laura McKowen: It's much more complex than that.
[00:23:18] Katy Milkman: Right. So anyway, lots of my friends, when they found out I was writing this book, they said, oh, you're writing a book about the fresh start effect.
[00:23:25] And I said, of course not, that would be such a useless book. Right. It would have, because so many people, it would get them like a week in and then they're done. And so, you know, even though that's probably one of the things I have become more of an expert on in the world. I felt like what was really important is we need all of these tools from figuring out how do we make it fun to actually pursue our goals.
[00:23:46] So we'll persist to understanding what it takes to build habits and confidence, to creating social support groups that can help us on our way to dealing with forgetfulness, which is another barrier to change. [00:24:00] So that is why, fresh starts, you know, January 12th, lots of things fail, I think is that we don't set up the structures on the scaffolding we need to support change, which require a lot more than just a burst of motivation.
[00:24:15] Laura McKowen: So let's talk about some of those things.
[00:24:16] Katy Milkman: I think one of the most common barriers to success is that it's unpleasant to pursue our goals. Right. It would be more fun to do the opposite, right? Whether it's, it's more fun to sit on the couch and watch TV.
[00:24:30] It's more fun to take a drag of the next cigarette. It's more fun to eat the unhealthy food. It's more fun to, you know, not study for the exam, but go out to a bar with friends, whatever the goal is normally there's something we're attempting to do in the moment, then work towards it. And that's a huge barrier to change.
[00:24:47] And one thing that's really interesting as Ayelet Fishbach at the University of Chicago and Kaitlin Woolley of Cornell have shown most of us think when we have some goal and it's important enough to us the best path to [00:25:00] success is to just push through like find the most efficient, effective path to success and take that one.
[00:25:07] And it turns out a small fraction of people have a different attitude and approach with a small fraction of people will actually try to change. And by using a path that's fun, they'll look for creating a way to pursue their goal. That will be enjoyable in the moment and maybe less efficient and effective.
[00:25:25] Let's use the gym. Because it's a really easy example. Most people can relate to like the efficient, effective path to getting in shape fast might be like StairMaster day after day, but a more fun path that'll take a little longer, might be Zoomba class with a friend. Okay. So what Ayelet and Kaitlin have shown is that we're wrong to think efficiency is good. And the reason is if you nudge people to try the fun path, they persist longer, maybe in a single burst, they don't get as far, but they keep going back. Whether it's exercise, study habits, you know, you name it, whatever it [00:26:00] is you're trying to change. If you do not enjoy it in the moment, you'll quit at a much higher rate than if you can make the path to your goal.
[00:26:08] One that you in any way, look forward. And it's just mind boggling to me that how little people appreciate that. We just, we're just like, I will just push through this is important and that is not the right path it time. And again, the science shows, we need ways to make it enjoyable, whether it's by making it social by temptation bundling, something that you look forward to to turn it into less of a chore, maybe by gamification, right.
[00:26:31] You know, bells and whistles that you put, you can sign up for an app that awards you prizes and points and whatever it is that makes it more enjoyable for you. If it's the competition element and the leaderboards, my dad loves that. He's like a Fitbit junkie and he's always telling me, he beat me this week and he loves that.
[00:26:52] And I'm like, I don't care about that. Really. I just need my Harry Potter playing. We all need our different, whatever it is that makes it [00:27:00] fun for you. It's not like a one size fits all. So gamification is one. And it creates that persistence.
[00:27:07] Laura McKowen: I feel like American puritanical hangover of if it's, if it's I got to work and it's gotta be painful and a struggle.
[00:27:18] If, if I'm doing something important, it must feel that way.
[00:27:22] Katy Milkman: Yeah, and that's a really good recipe for quitting. So, but I agree with you, there is this funny way we put it on a pedestal it's like pure if you, push through pain and it's more respected and yeah and so maybe we've yeah, maybe we have put that on a pedestal and it's a mistake and we've got to stop.
[00:27:44] We have to find ways to actually make it enjoyable. Because we don't, we can't push through at a very high rate.
[00:27:51] Laura McKowen: When I was reading this part of your book and actually the whole book because you know, again, my, a lot of my lenses is recovery. It's like, [00:28:00] I just thought it's amazing that anyone overcomes an addiction.
[00:28:03] Katy Milkman: It is amazing. It's a really hard challenge. And we can't even so many of us struggle with things that aren't chemically addictive. Right. And so it's, and then you layer that on top. It's amazing. It's really challenging.
[00:28:18] Laura McKowen: On so many levels, because, because if you're talking about making it fun or making it somewhat enjoyable, those first days, sometimes months are really that's it's hard to find those, those pieces, what can make an enjoyable. So I just, I just want to say that I was just thinking it's really incredible that people can, you kind of have all the factors working against you, including the psychological and and the chemical addicts.
[00:28:49] Katy Milkman: Yeah, no, absolutely. I agree. So first of all, I want to just say addiction is not my area of focus. It's not something that I [00:29:00] specifically have studied. So I'm speaking outside of my expertise here and yet my suspicion is there are ways even, even if you can't make it truly fun, there are ways to alleviate the misery and that there may not be enough emphasis placed on what, what silver linings can be created or what joy can be found.
[00:29:23] In that dark part of the journey, whether it's through social, you know, doing it socially or, um, substituting things that you really love and crave that aren't harmful so I still think the principal can apply.
[00:29:42] Laura McKowen: 100%. Let's talk about commitment devices. What are they, how can they be helpful? How do they work?
[00:29:48] Katy Milkman: Commitment devices are so powerful. So tools like making something fun or temptation bundling serve to deal with this challenge of present bias or that [00:30:00] we tend to delay gratification very poorly. We crave instant gratification. So if things like making something fun, solve that by changing the equation and making the thing that's good for you.
[00:30:17] Less undesirable in the most. Then the flip side is, so that's sort of the carrot, the flip side is adding the stick. Like how do you make the thing that's bad for you even worse so that, you know, there's even more of a downside to it. And that's where commitment devices come in. I think people found, find this set of tools, very counterintuitive because what they amount to we're used to, you know, a policymaker or a neighborhood association, an employer, a health plan, Rewarding or penalizing us based on good behavior, right?
[00:30:52] Like to try to, to change what we do or creating rules and laws. Think about [00:31:00] like getting a speeding ticket, right? That's an incentive to you. Get a fine, you're going to get slapped on the wrist. If you speed, you might be tempted to speed to get some more faster, but we're going to, we're going to set up an incentive structure to prevent that it's all imposed by someone else and a commitment device.
[00:31:14] What it does, is it's you. Looking to the future, seeing those temptations and imposing those fines and rules and constraints. So it will be more costly for you to make a bad choice in the heat of the moment. Right? So it's things like. Gambling self-exclusion lists where you can sign up knowing you have a gambling addiction and say, I want to be taken out of the casino.
[00:31:38] Not let in or get arrested. If I show up, I would like to prevent myself from entering. It sounds counterintuitive and people do it. It's an abuse, right? This drug, a drug that you can take that makes you nauseous or vomit at the smell of alcohol, recognizing. Yeah, I don't want to vomit, but I do want my future self to face consequences.
[00:31:56] If I make a decision that I don't want to make, they're [00:32:00] also cash commitment devices, which I find particularly fascinating. And this is where you can put money on the line that you will forfeit. If you fail to achieve a goal, you've set out to achieve. So. Um, right. You might say, I want to go to the gym four times in the next month and I'm going to put a hundred dollars on it.
[00:32:16] And I'm going to name a referee who is going to report, um, you know, my roommate is going to report to a website or maybe we'll just. Interpersonally whether or not I succeed. And if I don't, I don't, I also want a hundred bucks. There are websites where you can put money on the line like this with a referee and money will go to charity and you can choose a cause you hate by the way to make it really stinks.
[00:32:37] There's no silver lining. So one of my favorite studies of devices, actually in the domain of smoking and it was done by a bunch of economists, including Dean Karlan of Northwestern University and Jonathan Zinman of Dartmouth. And what they did is they randomly assigned smokers to a condition where they'd get all your traditional tools to [00:33:00] try to quit or a commitment device condition, where they get all the traditional tools.
[00:33:05] Plus they could put money on the line that they would have to forfeit in six months if they failed a nicotine or cotinine urine test. And what was amazing is that the people who had access to a way they could put money in down, that they could lose those folks quit at a 30% higher rate than other. So it was still, these are small quit rates, right?
[00:33:26] It's like something like 10% quit in one condition and 13% and the other, but it's still a really big improvement and it's of no cost, no cost to society. It's just giving people an extra tool they can use to constrain themselves. So I think they're really underused cause they sound weird and yet they are very powerful.
[00:33:49] Laura McKowen: Would shame be a commitment device?
[00:33:50] Katy Milkman: It could be. Yeah. I think it's like you tell someone…
[00:33:54] Laura McKowen: I'm going to tell all these people what I'm doing.
[00:33:59] Katy Milkman: Yeah. And [00:34:00] they'll hold me accountable and then I'll look bad in front of them if I don't achieve that goal. Yeah, absolutely. Shame as a penalty. It's a weaker penalty.
[00:34:08] So I'd call that more of a soft commitment, much weaker. So think about like the gambling self-exclusion list, where you sign up. Right. Tell your partner, your friends, I'm not gambling. And if I do, you know, I want you to call me out or you could sign yourself up for this list where you'll get arrested.
[00:34:26] If you walk into a casino, right. You can see one of them is going to be a more powerful incentive than the other. And I'm going with, it's going to be more powerful to not be allowed in, but it's still something. And it's a step in that direction. And it's, it's certainly a form of commitment we can treat try.
[00:34:44] Laura McKowen: I was very shocked about those two. I wouldn't, they seem counterintuitive to me. And I thought that would never work with me, but I've never, I'm sure they would, you know, money or like people, like, I know people respond to money.
[00:34:57] Katy Milkman: Yeah. One of my [00:35:00] favorite stories is this, software guy named Nick winter who had a bunch of goals for himself and decided to put his whole life savings at that point on the line. And he said, I'm going to forfeit. It was $14,000. He'd just moved across the country. He was sort of starting his career and he had a bunch of goals. He wanted to achieve. He wanted to write a book. He wanted to go skydiving. And he said, if I don't do this in this short time period, these $14,000 go to charity and I lose them and he got everything done. And he has this book called motivation hacker, where he talks about it. But I tell the story. Also, if you have that, if you, if something is important enough to you, that you value it at a monetary amount and you think losing that amount would change your decision and losses, by the way, loom larger than gains.
[00:35:51] That's a key finding from behavioral economics. We hate losing more than we enjoy winning. So that sting can be a [00:36:00] powerful thing that you can harness for yourself if you, if you choose to do this. So when it's important enough, that's when I'd recommend using a commitment device.
[00:36:07] Laura McKowen: This other thing you talk about is how your peers change you. And so choose them wisely. Talk about that. What you have you learned?
[00:36:15] Katy Milkman: Yeah, this is so important and. I think it's intuitive, that, the people you hang around with shape your decisions, right? This is like the advice we all get from our parents growing up. Like, you know, don't hang out with the bad eggs, but what's amazing is just how much they shape us.
[00:36:35] And sometimes in ways I wouldn't expect. So one study, I really love that illustrates this as just the person you're randomly assigned to room with as a freshman in college, affects your grades. If you end up with somebody who is had performed higher on the verbal SATs. You get better grades as a freshmen.
[00:36:53] Just these, you might not even speak to this person or befriend them, but you're seeing their study habits, right? Like, are they staying [00:37:00] in on Friday night? Are they going out and partying and whatever they do that starts to, to shape your perceptions of what's normal and so I want to fit in and also what works right.
[00:37:13] There are sort of two elements of why our social groups shape us. One is conformity pressure. We don't want to be the duck and the other is information by we look at them and we say like, w what, what works? What's, what's smart. What are other people doing? You know, if you're surrounded by vegetarians, it makes it seem natural.
[00:37:34] And you can like learn all the ways that they become vegetarians. I tell a story in my book about a friend and how she converted to vegetarianism after just living around a group in a college setting for a couple of weeks and actually seeing, oh, this isn't so hard. Like here's how they do it here, their tactics.
[00:37:52] So you can pick up tips. It's easy to hack and it seems normal. One thing I think we don't do enough and I've shown this in [00:38:00] research too, is deliberately observe what's working for others and deliberately use it. Like it happens sort of through osmosis. That's what kind of all this research shows when you're paying, when you're not even meaning to write your, you, weren't deliberately copying your college roommates study happens in most cases and it's rubbing off on you anyway.
[00:38:21] But what we show is when you give people a little nudge and say, Hey, if there's a goal you've been trying to achieve go find someone who's doing better. Ask them what they're doing and find a hack that's working for them and try to deliberately use it yourself. Like, it seems like you should just do this naturally, but telling people that people are like, oh, light bulb.
[00:38:41] I hadn't done that. They get benefits. So, so there's both the benefit of like who you're around and you can shape that deliberately and it's going to rub off. And then there's this additional opportunity to be deliberate about hacking. Your emulation, like you can do it on purpose.
[00:38:59] It doesn't have to [00:39:00] just rub off naturally,
[00:39:03] Laura McKowen: I think, is it atomic habits by James Clear. One of the, like the lines that stood out to me from that book is to surround yourself with people where, what you want to do. Your desired behavior is.
[00:39:17] Katy Milkman: Yes, absolutely. Although I do think there's a limit to that, and this is also worth noting, and it's a good opportunity to sort of say with a caveat, because I think we can think, oh yeah, I should just just survive, surround myself with successful people and I will achieve success too.
[00:39:33] And there the limit is, and, and I tell this story about a research study that actually was based on the roommate study I described.
[00:39:44] What the air force academy did was they said, okay, let's actually try to get our most at-risk cadets to be more likely to do well in school. Now that we know your roommate matters, let's match up the lowest performers with the highest performers. So they'll be pulled up [00:40:00] and they're like, well, if the top performers are pulled down a little, that's not a big deal because they're already doing so well.
[00:40:05] So they engineered this system, thankfully they did it experimentally so they could test. Value because they thought, well, you know, we'll be the gold standard and everyone else will emulate us. And what they found in this test is that actually it backfired. So in this case that the limit of the situation was when you're really not achieving at a high level.
[00:40:29] You're like, you know, most at risk to get absent in school. And you're put in with a straight A student, you have no common ground. And actually what they'd hoped for that social benefit, it wasn't present because there was no glue. There was, there was no sort of middle. Um, and they, the social group sort of bifurcated, right?
[00:40:47] These people don't even hang out together. They don't, and it things actually got worse because now you have no one to talk to and no one to relate to. So that I think is a major thing to keep in mind. It's really helpful to hang around. [00:41:00] High-performers in terms of achieving goals, except they have to be within reach.
[00:41:04] It can't be people you can't relate to who are so far ahead of you, that it just makes you feel bad about yourself. And then it's like, well, how do you define that balance? But I think. Hopefully that's enough information for most people that go on and say, like, I get it. Like, you know, if I'm starting a new business, I don't want to go hang out with, you know, the people who have the most successful companies in my community and have that be my network, because I'm going to feel bad about myself.
[00:41:27] I need some other entrepreneurs are just a little ahead who could become my network. Just like when I formed this advice club. Of senior women who are seven steps ahead of me on the ladder to be my mentors, who I could learn from though that PS has value too, but it was a group of people who are sort of in a similar, we had similar goals, a similar stage.
[00:41:46] We could push each other forward, strive together, help each other. And when, you know, when one gets a little ahead, we learn from them, but you don't want these gaps that are just gigantic in your social group. Because that can be demotivating.[00:42:00]
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