Podcast Player Episode 075

Dr Robin Stern (00:06): Welcome to the Gaslight Effect podcast. I'm Robin Stern, co-founder and associate director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and author of the bestselling book, the Gaslight Effect. I'm an educator and a psychoanalyst, but first and foremost, I'm a wife, a mother, a sister, aunt, and healer. And just like many of you, I was a victim of gaslighting. Please join me for each episode as I interview fascinating guests and explore the concept of gaslighting. You'll learn what it truly means to be gaslighted, how it feels, how to recognize it, and how to understand it, and ultimately, how to get out of it.

Dr Robin Stern (00:55): Before we begin, I want you to know that talking about gaslighting can bring up challenging and painful emotions. Give yourself permission to feel them. Some of you may wanna go more deeply with your emotions. While some of you may hold them more lightly, no matter what you're feeling, know that your emotions are a guide to your inner life. Your emotions are sacred and uniquely you respect and embrace them for they have information to give you. If you want to listen to other episodes of the Gaslight Effect podcast, you can find them@robinstern.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for being here with me. Hi everyone, and welcome to this episode of the Gaslight Effect podcast. I'm really thrilled to have with me today Dr. Dan Ariely, who is a psychologist and a behavioral economics professor at Duke University. And Dan, please tell us about your work and why you said yes to coming on the Gaslight Effect podcast.

Dan Ariely (01:59): So your invitation seemed very nice, and I have to say that I think podcasts are really interesting. So two people who don't know each other usually meet somewhere and have small talk casual conversation. And, and the podcast allows an opportunity to meet somebody else and go quickly into more deeper discussion. It's kind of interesting, you know, when when will we adopt that in other areas? So I try to say yes to podcasts and I love meeting new people. So, so that's, that's the reason

Dr Robin Stern (02:36): I really appreciate that answer, and you're being candid about it. And I agree. It's so nice to, to have this space with you and to ask questions that I know that you will have amazing and unique answers too, so, and get to know you. So thank you.

Dan Ariely (02:52): Of course. I will try. So, but you know, since we're we're having this why don't I ask you, tell me a little bit about you.

Dr Robin Stern (02:59): Sure. So my name is Robin Stern and I'm a psychoanalyst by training. I'm the co-founder and a senior advisor to the director of the Yale Center Promotional Intelligence. And I have been really doing interviewing and psychoanalysis and psychotherapy my whole life and been fascinated with the way people work and the way relationships work, and have specialized through the years in my practice and in my work, particularly with women, but with couples as well on what hurts people, the impact of hurtful and harmful behaviors, and how that shows up and what's the cost of it, and how people can feel empowered to, to stop it, limit it or leave the relationship. And importantly, I focused on the particular behavior that I called the Gaslight Effect where as you know, from the, I'm sure you know from the 1944 movie somebody tries to drive you crazy, and you somehow walk into that and you somehow believe it and you believe it, even if you know it's not true. And and so that's why I asked you to talk with me, because there's obviously a lot of alignment between misinformation, misbelief and that that pull to believe something that is not at all true, but somehow the context sets the perception.

Dan Ariely (04:34): So, yes. So I'm, I'm fascinated with gaslighting. I think it's one of the, the most interesting psychological phenomenas ex exactly. For, for the reason that you're saying is that somebody external gets to dictate our reality. We, we get sucked into an and believing. Now. Now so I'm interested in lots of things but my most recent book is about misbelief, and it's really about how normal, kind, smart, wonderful people adopt an alternative view of reality. And I started, I started looking at this from a personal experience in the early COVID days. There were a few people that decided that I was the chief consciousness architect for the Illuminati, and that I was one of the people who brought about COVID initially, that I was part of the design. You know, they said, how could the world have been so compliant? How can so people believe this? And so on? People thought that I was involved, and they also predicted that I would be involved in the vaccine. They predicted I had contracts with the vaccine companies, all kinds of things like that.

Dr Robin Stern (05:51): Who, who were this group of people?

Dan Ariely (05:53): So, so, you know, the, the people who ended up believing the COVID conspiracy ended up being wide, a wide range of people, and they came up from different parts of the world. But, but we, we'll talk about the psychology in a second, and you'll, you'll tell me how it looks. And the beginning was very tough. Death threats people sending me videos of them burning my books was very, very tough. And then about a month into it oh, I, I spent about a month trying to convince them that I wasn't this evil person that they thought. And I felt miserably. I almost convinced one person, but, you know, it was really a, a terrible, terrible waste of time. And then I said, okay, I'm, I'm not successful in convincing anybody, but as a social scientist, I need to understand what's going on.

Dan Ariely (06:50): And it's such a amazing phenomena, you know, if somebody comes and tells you, oh, I believe the world is flat, or whatever you could say, okay, that's interesting. But when somebody comes to you and say to you that they know that you did something yesterday, and you say, but I did it. And they say, yes, you did. There's something very eerie about that when, when I'm an expert in what I did last week, and somebody coming to me and tell me that I, look, I did something else. So, so I started studying this, and I started to, to understand what happens. And, and I'll, I'll tell you that the, the, the final analysis, and then we'll go into the details, is that it's not about us versus them. It's about people in a very stressful situation. And I don't mean the kind of stress that says, gee, I have a thousand emails to go over.

Dan Ariely (07:44): I'm not sure how I'll finish. I mean, the kind of stress that says, I don't understand the world. What is this Chinese virus? Who are the houthis? Why, why is this happening? Why, why is my fortune not as good as what my parents promised me? Why are some other people better off? And all kinds of things like that. And then that creates the need for people to look for an alternative story. So if you say, look, if people are happy and resilient, there's no need for an alternative reality. When does this need to arise? It arise when they have something missing. They're stressed, they're, they're anxious, they don't understand the world, and they need a story. And that story, in the short term, it's very helpful because it explains something. But in the long term, of course, it has its own downsides. And, and I think that gaslighting could be like that as well, when you say, okay, so what gaslight could be just banned, but then people would not adopt that. Why are they adopting it in the beginning? And I suspect that it's similar. I think that people are saying, you know, why is this person not with me? Why, why, why did this happen? I don't understand what had happened. And the gaslighting provides a short term answer.

Dr Robin Stern (09:15): So I, I agree. And I, and I'll add to that, in that moment, the gas, it wants to wants to be aligned. So there's this drive to be aligned. There's drive to, to join the person who is conveying that reality, and in fact, even insisting on that reality. And we are most of us are used to, at one time or another, accommodating. So it's not that unfamiliar to, to accommodate or even to question mm-hmm . And certainly, I think one of the reasons that women walk into gaslighting moments more than men, although men do as well is that we are, we're taught to, to please to be on the other side of the, to stand in somebody else's shoes. And, and sometimes to the point where we forget we even have our own shoes, but we we're standing there and we're seeing it from another perspective. And we're saying, okay, and to your point, could this make sense for the world? Could this make sense of what's happening here? And if what also makes sense is for us to be aligned, and you don't have skills to manage your discomfort from all that stress in the moment, then you're likely to say, you know what? You're right.

Dan Ariely (10:39): So, so kind of the, the, the psychological perspective here is to say, when you see things that don't make sense, you could say they're crazy, or you could say they might make sense in some other way, at least in the short term. And the metaphor for I think both of how I think about misbelief and how you think about gaslighting is it's a bit like a mosquito bite that in the short term, itching a mosquito bite makes sense. It reduces some of the pain, it reduces some of the discomfort, it reduces some of the stress long term, it spreads the poison out, and it, it actually makes it make things worse. Now, in terms of misbelief, it's, it's this initial stress. And by the way, kind of, if I had to put a simple equation, I would say that the experience stress, it's a function of the real stress minus resilience.

Dan Ariely (11:36): And, and what is so sad about the time in our lives is that we are in a period of an all, all time low resilience. We don't spend as much time with friends. We don't spend as much time with the extended family. COVID, we lost friends at work. We haven't really regained them as much. Income inequality reduces resilience. We don't trust the government to provide for us if we are out of work, for example, or sick. So, so, so the experience stress is, is higher. Plus there's lots of real reason to be, to be stressful. So that's what pushes people. But now there are three other things, three other elements that make it worse, right? So you could say, okay, so I didn't use to consider alternatives. Now I'm stressed, anxious, low resilience. I start exploring an alternative reality. Now, there are the cognitive components, how we process information and so on.

Dan Ariely (12:42): There are the personality components. What kind of people are more or less likely to go down this path? And then are the social elements. And I think that some of those could also echo gaslighting, but, but maybe not to the same extent. So let's start with cognitive. There are some things that are very simple. One is we don't look at all information. Some of us walks, some of us watch TV, station A, some of us watch tv, station B or podcast or whatever. So we choose the information that we agree with. But there are other things that are more devious. And I'll give you example of one of them. One of them is called the illusion of explanatory depth. And what's the illusion of explanatory depth? Tell us. So I, I demonstrated it once with flush toilet. And I came to people, I say, how well do you understand how a flush toilet works?

Dan Ariely (13:45): And people said, quite well, on a scale from zero to seven, almost seven, great. Then I went back to them and I say, okay, luckily for you, I have all the pieces here of a brand new flush toilet. Please assemble it. Nobody could assemble it. And after that, I came back to them and said, okay, so how well do you understand the flush toilet? And they said, not so much. Now think about how we usually have conversations with people. We usually attack them, we attack them, they attack us, and so on. Of course, our success rate in convincing anybody of anything is very low, right? And willing to bet that in the last five years, none of us have heard the term, have heard the expression, you know what? You're really right. I never heard such good arguments. I'm fully convinced now that I'm going to change my opinion.

Dan Ariely (14:40): But the illusion of explanatory depth says that the problem is not with knowledge. The first problem is with confidence, because people are dramatically overconfident if you want to start having a discussion. It's not about attacking them, it's about getting them to doubt their own strength of belief. Do you understand how a flush toilet works? Show me. Oh, not so much. Let's, let's continue, right? In the same way for other things. You know, you think that COVID Trump and the elections, you name it, help me understand, how does that work? Where does it come from?

Dr Robin Stern (15:21): Just to clarify, are you saying then that because I, so I am, let's say in other words confident self-possessed woman, and in this relationship with you, I am second guessing my own phone number? Is that because no no one's ever challenged me on that particular thing before and asked me to speak to that particular thing, and so, or wonder about it. So now you're, you're saying, no, that isn't true. And I'm back on my heels saying, well, maybe he's right. 'cause I never thought it through.

Dan Ariely (15:57): So, so what I'm saying is that in the domain of convincing people about different opinions, okay, so let's, let's talk about, I don't know any, any topic. Let's say whether it's a good or a bad idea to have kids learn financial literacy in school. What, whatever. If I wanted, you have an opinion, and I have a different opinion, and I want to convince you of something, I'm saying that the first step is not to attack you, but, but to ask you how does this really work? How would financial literacy actually improve things and don't improve? Right? So going underneath in the same way that how does this flash toilet works helps to say, okay, so maybe I don't understand, right? So if you say, we need to do this in the schools, and I say, okay, how, how would it work if we did that?

Dan Ariely (16:57): Help me understand who would do what how will they translate into better kids, better educated kids? And, and at some point you would say, you know what? I'm not so sure. Now, I think what what you're asking is could this very effective strategy for conversation about topics by reducing first the confidence could be something that the gaslight are doing deliberately, right? Because, because when you think about it here, I'll ask you a question, Robin. Do you believe that we are facing manmade global war? Let's say you said yes. And I would say, how do you know? And you would say, I read the UN reports, and I would say, did you really read it? And you would say, no, I read the abstract . And I would say, you know, I'm just, I'm just most people. And then, and then I would say, and, and how do you really know that this is it?

Dan Ariely (17:59): And, and, you know, and you would say, okay, I read this paper. But there's lots of other papers. Are you, are you confident? And all of a sudden, like, if we kept on edited for five minutes, you would say, you know what the truth is, I haven't done my job. I trusted sources. I, but, but if you ask me, have I done my independent research and evaluated things, and do I even have the capacity to understand global warming science, you would say, okay, you know what? I have to admit I relied on other people. And if you ask me, do I really know, I'm all of a sudden less sure that I know now that's the strategy. If I wanted to convince you that maybe you are not as sure, and now, by the way, if I was a, a global climate change denier, I would've said, okay, so now you're not so sure. Let me tell you something else, right? Reduce your conference first. But I think what you're suggesting is that this could be the intuitive strategy that the gaslight are using to basically stop getting people to question their beliefs.

Dr Robin Stern (19:09): Yes. To question their beliefs or their perceptions, or their . And

Dan Ariely (19:15): How do you, how do you really know you, you know, pe people are supposed to do? How do, how do you really know? So there there is, there is so much in our lives that we're overconfident about just because life is complex and we don't have time to explore everything and so on. So,

Dr Robin Stern (19:34): And typically, because if I tell you about myself, you're not going to try to try to get me to feel unmoored or unglued or destabilized or that's right. Nobody ever asked me that before. I'm saying I, you know, I, I saw that yesterday. How do I really know? What do you mean? I saw that?

Dan Ariely (19:52): Yep, that's right. How do you know that you really saw it ? Okay, so, so the, the second part is the cognition. It's the way that our brain process information, presumably like a computer, but in reality, not really, right? So our memory is flawed. Our understanding is flawed. Our confidence is overconfidence. And the co cognitive part is all about the way we process information. Mm-Hmm . Then there's the emotional part. And the emotional part is about which people are more likely to go down the funnel of misbelief and which one are less. And by the way, it's not as if, if you possess these personality, you are sure to become a mis believer. And if you don't, you don't. They just make things smoother. They accelerate things or not. And I'll give you maybe one example. There's a little math problem that we use.

Dan Ariely (20:53): The problem goes as follow a baseball bat, and a baseball ball cost together. A dollar 10, a baseball bat, and a baseball ball cost together a dollar 10. The bat cost a dollar more than the ball. The bat cost the door more than the more. And the question is, how much does the ball cost? Now you know the answer, so I'm not going to ask you, but most people say 10 cents. Now, there are two types of people, everybody, the, the answer, 10 cents come to everybody. They were like a dollar and a dollar 10. And the, the answer 10 cents just comes to people's mind. Some people just say it, and some people check themselves. The people who check themselves discover that 10 cents is not possible. It's actually 5 cents and a dollar, five together a dollar 10. The difference is a dollar. Now, it's a problem that everybody can solve, but people are divided into the people who trust their intuition.

Dan Ariely (21:50): It feels this way, therefore, I believe it, or let me check it. And the people who trust their intuitions are more likely to go into that path of the funnel of misbelief. Now, if we make the connection to gaslighting, I think if you give me an alternative view of my reality, and maybe the personality is the pressure to please, and I now want to please you more, I'm more likely to hang onto that and say, yes, this is the thing, and therefore be more likely to go down into that sense of belief. So there's a set, there's a set of personality traits. Some of them are good, like people who can see multiple dots and connect them. Creativity. We love creativity

Dr Robin Stern (22:45): And people who are more agreeable, people who are motivated as you're saying to please.

Dan Ariely (22:50): Yep. And then there's the last component, which is the most dangerous one, which is the social component. And I'll describe some of it, and then, we'll, you'll tell me whether disappears also in gaslighting or whether gaslighting doesn't have this social company. So the first thing is that the people who start believing in alternative reality get rejected by standard society. Think about the us. If you're pro-life or pro-choice, and you meet somebody from the other side, they can't but express their disgust. It's, it's visible. You feel rejected. There's no way to feel, oh, you know, we're just the same. You like green eye, light, red. No, no, no. There's a, there's a real sense. Like something is broken in you. So, so the first, the first feeling that people have is a feeling of rejection. During COVID, Macron, president Macron said that the French people who don't take vaccines are basically not French, right?

Dan Ariely (23:59): Very, very strong offense. And I don't know what he thought that these people say, oh, we're not French. Let us change our mind and go back and get vaccinated. It only alienated the more and made things worse. Now, feeling alienated is a very, very strong sense. It's a very powerful emotion. And the, the research on this is amazing. The guy who started the research on this described that he was walking in the park with his dog, and he sees two people playing Frisbee. They tossed a Frisbee back and forth, back and forth. All of a sudden, the Frisbee falls next to his feet. He picks it up, he throws it back to them, and to his surprise, they throw it back to him. And for a few minutes, the three people play. And then they stop throwing the Frisbee to him, and he just stands there waiting, not getting the Frisbee.

Dan Ariely (24:54): And he says he felt very rejected, very OSUs. Then he went ahead and he designs some really interesting experiments in which he replicated this idea. He got the participant to come to a lab next to a little garden. The participant came in a particular hour, let's say 10:00 AM They opened the door and they say, sorry, we're 10 minutes late. They closed the door. And there were two other presumably participants waiting, but those were not real participants. There were two research assistants working for the research. One of them picks a ball, and they toss it between the three of them for 10 minutes. At the end of the 10 minutes, they open the door and they call the participant. Then they test the participant on the set of things. We'll talk in a second one. The second condition, the same thing. They come, sorry, we're 10 minutes late.

Dan Ariely (25:50): One of the research assistants picks up the ball. They toss it for five minutes, not for 10, for five minutes, and then for the other five minutes, they toss it between the two research assistants. And the participant just waits. Nothing happens. They feel ostracized. They open the door, they call them in. What's the difference between the people who played for 10 minutes versus the people who played for five minutes and then were ostracized for five minutes? Huge difference, huge difference. And the difference is that almost everything good about humanity goes down. People are less helpful and less generous and less optimistic, and everything bad goes up. They cheat more and they steal and all, all of those things. So being ostracized, even for a short time, is a very, very powerful, powerful body. So we said people get rejected, they get ostracized, and then what happened is that they go ahead and they look for a community that would love them.

Dan Ariely (26:57): So I'll give you an example for this. There was a guy who wrote a post about me, and you know how with cows, when they rain raise cow for beef, there's like a whole process where the cow goes to its death and he doesn't know, and they kill it. And, and I mean, terrible, terrible story. But this guy described me as creating that for humanity. So he said that I'm, I'm leading people to their death without them knowing. And once they will know, it'll be too late. Anyway, he described that in, in, in depth. And then he predicted that there will be nurenberg 2.0 trials, and at the end, I will be found guilty. And he asked his followers if they think I would get life in prison or public hanging. And people wrote their opinions. And what was so amazing is how many little hearts and hugs and flowers were in the people's comments, not toward me.

Dan Ariely (28:02): Of course, toward him, people congratulated him for his thoughtful comments and his insights and understanding the process and so on. And you know, you and I know academic discussions. Nobody ever says anything nice to anybody. Certainly not flowers or love. Why is it that these groups are full of positive things, right? As we said before, misbelief is not for nothing. People adopt it for a reason. Such positivity is not for nothing. Why is it? It's because people feel so rejected by the outside world that they go into a group, and the group helps them feel very much accepted. Sounds like a cult. It's the beginning of a cult. Absolutely. And then, and then there's the, the two other components. One of them is called Shibolet. Story of Shibolet is a story from the Bible. So there were these two tribes that had a difficult war.

Dan Ariely (29:03): They settled on two sides of the river. But the river is very small, and people walked around from side to side from a while in a while, and they wanted to find out if the people that they meet are from their tribe or the other tribe. And Sheeb is the name of a plant like a wheat. And the two tribes pronounced the name Shibolet slightly differently. One of them said Shibolet. One of them said, sea bullet. So imagine I walk around and I see you, I don't know you. I show you the plant, and I say, Hey, you, how do you call this plant? If you call it the way that I call it, we're brothers. We're from the same tribe. If you call it the way the other tribe is calling it, then I need to chase you away or do something. Now, I use, now that the term shibolet is a term for a discussion that looks like it's about the facts, but it's about identity.

Dan Ariely (30:01): I show you the plant. I say, what's the name of this plant? Do I really care about the plant? No, I care about your identity. So by the way, if you think about this lens of shibolet, it helps explain lots of things that are nothing to do with the truth. We're used to having discussions that are actually about the facts, but in fact, it's open often about something else like identity. Right? Here we are, we're anti-immigration pro-immigration, pro woke, anti woke. The discussion is not just about the facts, it's about stating who, who we are.

Dr Robin Stern (30:40): Reminds me of, of films. Do you remember the old film Annie Hall, where while they're having this conversation about artwork and museums, there's a subtitle going on about how he's attracted to her. And I mean, it is subtitle, right? Is that subject? That's right. Yeah,

Dan Ariely (31:00): That's right. And then the last component is cognitive dissonance. And cognitive dissonance is basically this idea that we usually think that preferences call cause actions, but cognitive dissonance says that actions can cause preferences. If we act in a certain way, we can say, oh, we acted this way. We must believe that as well. So if you can get people to post things online, pro Palestinian, if you could get people to go to a couple of demonstrations, whatever you get them to do, their preferences follow after that. And anyway, so, so that's the package. The package is stress and low resilience. The package is co cognitive biases, emotional per personality sensitivity. And then the social process that is rejection, looking for acceptance becoming more extreme, and cognitive dissonance, which, which cements the process, which is, by the way, why from COVID vaccination rates are still low. And, and so, so, so I think the, the question to you is, the way I've seen it so far is I thought that gaslighting has the first three components, stress, cognition, and personality. But I wasn't sure about the social process because it's usually what I thought is that it's between a couple. So it doesn't have a support group, it doesn't have the shibolet, it doesn't have, but, but maybe there are some elements of that as well.

Dr Robin Stern (32:41): Certainly. So first of all, thank you for that. And I'm sure that it's fascinating for everyone listening. And there is very definitely sometimes an implicit social component in gaslighting. Well, everybody knows that you are, you can't remember anything. And remember when we were at grandma's last night and all the cousins were there, well see the way they look at you. So there is some kind of social components and, and some kind of evoking that community that maybe you thought you belong to. And now you suddenly in that moment feel alienated from because they were all talking about you. And certainly there can be gas lighting that is that's happening in a group where you are, you feel a way that is completely different from the group, and you feel you have thoughts that are not allowed. And this is very much like a cult allowed to be in, in the group.

Dr Robin Stern (33:41): And you have a voice that's not allowed to be expressed in that group, otherwise you suffer exactly what, like you're talking about, social death, social isolation, alienation, which is very, as you're saying, powerful, a shaper in human behavior and, and and the glue that keeps people together, even from the gas, I gas it. And even in relationships where you're accommodating so much and giving up so much that you don't even recognize yourself after a while. And I, I mean, I'm fascinated with the different components that you're talking about, because at the moment that somebody shifts, sounds like that shifting of, well, wait a minute, maybe he's right. Maybe they're, that shifting is overdetermined by these various components that are operating at that same time where no resilience, no resources.

Dan Ariely (34:44): So, so I like this parallel. But, but one of the things in, in, in my story of Misbelief is that at some point they join a group and that group gives them other things. So there is a rejection from a group. There's inference about rejection from a group, but are the people that are being gaslighted, are they, I I'm guessing it's just so humiliating to to be in that, in that section. They don't necessarily join a group of, of other people who feel this way. They don't get, get this strengthened from other people, right? It the, probably the, the parallel stops there because when you, when you believe whatever the earth is flat, you go and you join the flat earth group and you strengthening yourself and so on in your beliefs, I think with gaslighting, it probably stops there. So probably the, the process is kind of similar up to that point. And then you don't, you don't have the social support that pulls you even further to this other group.

Dr Robin Stern (35:45): I would say it depends, and it depends on how old you are. It depends on whether that social group is your family and the, the emotional psychological cost of leaving your family when you realize you are not of that same mind is too great. And so you gaslight yourself and then begin to believe that. And also what you're, what you're talking about in terms of alienation definitely leaves people vulnerable to belong to a group where they feel that they belong. And so people who are preying on whether they're consciously praying, whether they're not consciously praying, and they just happen into a relationship where somebody is telling them about themselves or a a makes the promise of a better world, makes the promise of greater happiness, of greater belonging, and like-mindedness, people are vulnerable to that when they've been rejected.

Dan Ariely (36:43): Can I, can I switch the conversation a little bit? Please. Okay. So I had this complex experience, and I wrote the book on, on Misbelief. But recently another topic that I've been fascinated with is bureaucracy. And I actually created a website called the Center for Advanced Bureaucracy, where I complain about bureaucracy. And, and when you talk about gaslighting it makes me also think about bureaucracy. And I'll, I'll give you kind of a tough metaphor for this. So one of the, the things we saw in COVID was a dramatic increase in violence within families, especially against kids. And I, I did some research on that, and we tried to create a program to reduce violence against kids. And, and one of the things very, very sad things I learned in the process was that violence against kids is not just about the physical abuse, it's about the fact that it's given to them by the person they depend most on. So if you say, okay, let's say there's some physical abuse, it comes from a, a kid in their class, or from a parent, you could say, oh, the, the, the physical thing is the same, but from a parent, it's the, the person they de depend, depend the most on.

Dan Ariely (38:14): And I think that bureaucracy is a little bit like violence within the family. So, you know, I, I think about my university, for example, and you know, it's basically saying we think we have a mission of research, research and teaching , but there's something within the organization that is fighting that, that is not allowing that to come, no, that there's no physical physical violence. But I'm wondering whether bureaucracy is, is a version of Gaslight where there are people who work in an organization that on one hand tells them, we want you to move forward. We want you to do all of these things we want, but at the same time, are blocking, are blocking any, any progress.

Dr Robin Stern (39:14): So, yes, and, and blocking the progress. And then when the people whose progress has been blocked complain about the blocking of the progress, that's where the gaslighting comes in. Because then that's, that's your problem. You don't feel like you can make progress here. Well, you know, what are you doing? What, or what could you be doing differently? But actually it's not possible because we set the conditions where it's not gonna happen.

Dan Ariely (39:40): So, so it is, I think, I think I can, I can see gaslighting in, in romantic relationship, but I think that in the business world, it feels to me that it's the, the most similar metaphor is to, is to bureaucracy. Where it's a, this double message of saying, make progress, but we are not letting you do this. And, and you're doing what you're supposed to but not really. And then as you say, what's, what's wrong with you?

Dr Robin Stern (40:10): Yeah, that spin, I mean, that's the, the what are the core elements, if not the core element of a gaslight, you know, helping you to spin or insisting that you spin your reality and seeking to sow seeds of doubt in your trust, in your reality. And when you're living in a gaslighting culture where, I mean, I can remember many instances where my kids were going on their trajectories to colleges, and the high schools are saying, grades don't matter. No, it's not about the grades. It's not about it's about the goodness of fit. It's not, don't worry, don't pressure your kids so much, but sitting there in the audience, every parent, Nope, that's not true. It's not, it's really not true. Yeah, but what's the point of speaking up? Because there is that kind of group think, you know, or they're insisting on the group think even though everybody in the audience is sitting there with their own subtitles, not true.

Dan Ariely (41:08): So going back to, to, to academia and bureaucracy. So, so if you say, I want to be an academic, and I want to keep my psychological health about me, I cannot surrender to this gaslighting. I need to basically say, your bureaucracy is terrible, and I'm not willing to admit that I could do things differently. I, I basically have to keep a very clear and, and sad understanding of bureaucracy. It's a, it's a reaction. It's a reaction. I don't know if it happens also in American businesses, but I think we have created a society where people don't care so much about progress, and they just don't want to make mistakes. And I think universities are extreme on that, on that level. They just want, we don't want anybody to touch us to say anything we don't want. Like, and, and plus lots of lawyers, and there's a consequence that there's a lot of pressure to do nothing,

Dr Robin Stern (42:19): And there's a lot of pressure to please everybody, which sometimes results in, you can't really do anything because if you, if you act in one way, you may displease someone.

Dan Ariely (42:33): So what advice, let's say I came to you. So I'm, I'm in a abusive relationship with a university . They're telling me on one hand, do research. On the other hand, they're giving me a lot of bureaucracy. What would you tell me kind of drawing on your experience in, in romantic relationship of how to handle this? I don't want to leave the relationship, but I also don't want to lose my psychological wellbeing. What would you tell me to do?

Dr Robin Stern (43:03): I would say that you know what your truth is, and if you can hold onto your truth and teach from what you know to be true, as long as there are certain parameters you abide by if you wanna stay in the university. And then I think the real answer is at what point do you feel like you're giving up too much of yourself to follow them? I think there's a lot of territory you can cover in your classroom, in your laboratory, in your research that can be consonant with what you're trying to give your students and what you're trying to give the world without violating the rules. And if that's not true, it may not be possible long term,

Dan Ariely (43:54): But I think you, you would also say that I should be very worried about this point in which I start buying into the position that I need to change, that maybe, maybe it's not bureaucracy that is slowing me down, that maybe I'm not doing something.

Dr Robin Stern (44:12): Well, if you are thinking that, then I would be very worried, and I would suggest reading my book because it really is about naming what's happening to you and not being, not just accommodating yourself to the external reality. I have a question for you. Yes. What's been the most surprising thing that you have found in your research? The most surprising

Dan Ariely (44:41): Across everything I've done?

Dr Robin Stern (44:43): Well, maybe about misbelief or mis Yeah, maybe about misbelief,

Dan Ariely (44:48): About misbelief. I, I think it's about how resistant people are to change once they get into the social component. You know, it's like our, our go-to approach is information. We show people information and we say, isn't this convincing? And the, the ability of people to reject information and to stay consistent with their beliefs and no matter what not to change is amazing. One of the women I talk to sadly got cancer about a year ago. And because she developed such a belief about the healthcare system, she refused to get treatment. So she got lots of natural treatment, but she didn't get any treatment. And she sadly passed away last month. You know, it's a, it's amazing. It's a, it's a, even, even when death is knocking, their beliefs are, are so powerful. And, you know, we have a few success cases of people who came back, but certainly not a lot. You know, there, there are inability to dig ourself out of the holes that we dig ourself into is, is really a terrible, terrible situation,

Dr Robin Stern (46:23): Putting the hole of being in a gaslighting relationship over time. Because when you dig yourself into a hole where you are not your, you're not the same self who walked in to that relationship, to that organization, to that university you don't have the strength or the resources that you did when you were first that other self before you started giving away little pieces of yourself to accommodate to that, to someone else's reality.

Dan Ariely (46:57): Now, where do you define the line between constructive criticism and gaslighting?

Dr Robin Stern (47:04): It's different. Constructive criticism is I say, Hey, you know what? I really liked the way you did X, Y, Z, and I would've appreciated more of you are doing A, B, C, and mm-hmm . If you'd consider that. Yeah, gaslighting is and then of course, you're welcome to gaslight yourself if you wanna take that away. But gas lighting is you know, really, I've noticed that when you're think when you're, you're thinking through something you have a problem staying logical with it. Like, did you ever notice that about yourself? You're not, not really a good thinker, you know? Mm-Hmm . And perhaps that's coming across in your . So, you know, I like that. But the other, that's really your problem with thinking that piece of undermining trying to undermine your confidence. Yes. It undermining your your reality. And, and also that little subtitle. 'cause Now we're not talking about what happened. We're talking about my perception of what's wrong with you.

Dan Ariely (48:16): Yeah. It's not about what I do, it's about who, who I am,

Dr Robin Stern (48:21): Who you are in

Dan Ariely (48:22): Your mind. Yeah,

Dr Robin Stern (48:23): Exactly. And suddenly were you to walk away from that conversation, you might be saying to yourself, you know what, maybe she's right. Maybe there, maybe I do have that problem. And I didn't realize that. Yeah. And so you're no longer even thinking about the speech you gave or the class you just taught, or whether I liked it or students would like it. You're thinking about, do you know how to think straight?

Dan Ariely (48:50): And, and it needs to be something that we think is negative. So for example, lots of people in the last few years have told me that they think I'm very naive, and I have, I think it's true, , I think it's true. I think I have lots of trust in people. I think it's a good way to live. I don't think it's gaslighting. I think they were correct in making me,

Dr Robin Stern (49:15): But, you know, people might have tried to gaslight you with that. And I, I love that you're able to say, you know what? I am naive. But that, but in a gaslighting moment, you'd be able to say, I am naive. But that doesn't answer the question of X. Right? Because sometimes people will tell you about yourself to deflect the conversation, to avoid responsibility, to get out of a tight spot.

Dan Ariely (49:42): And where else do you see this happening? It's mostly in romantic relationships.

Dr Robin Stern (49:46): Definitely in the workplace, definitely in the family. And to your point, it's extremely painful when the people who you love and trust so much are the people who's tell, who are telling you that there's something wrong with you. You're much more likely to believe it. And the, the bigger the investment that you have, whether it's in the organization, the your doctor, your loss of medical gaslighting going on, your family member, your partner, the harder it is to say, this is my problem. You know? Mm-Hmm . Or I'm sorry, the harder it is to say, this is your problem, the bigger investment you have in your gaslight. That's why medical gaslighting has become so much more popular because people are now saying more about how they invested. They trusted their doctors, they believed them. And so it was hard to, when the doctor was giving them misinformation or show shooing them off and dismissing them to say, no, this is you. This is you, this is not me. So have you ever experienced gaslighting in your life that you felt like, wow on this road of going believing misinformation?

Dan Ariely (51:12): So, so, so I think, I think for me the biggest issue have been with bureaucracy where, where I was given information that kind of the right way to do things is to take forever and eventually not to do anything. And like, this is the right way, and don't you see it? And I don't know why, but I, I refuse to buy into it. I think maybe you know, maybe the fact that I did my little website for the Center of Advanced Hindsight, maybe it's like journaling and promising yourself that you're committed to your original cause. But that was, for me, a period, it's been the last few years that where bureaucracy has increased so much that I think it's counterproductive. Thi this has been a period for me where I, I felt autistic that I, how can I be in conversation with these people?

Dan Ariely (52:18): How can they possibly mean what they just said? How can it be like, we had a, we had a grant from a bank and the lawyers, my lawyers, the, the Duke lawyers argued with them for I think five months about what would happen if we go and visit their office and we fall, who would pay the insurance policy? And they eventually came up with a proposal that we will never visit them, and we would only have meetings in places of third parties that have insurance, , you know? And I said, look, don't we, don't, we want to do research with ? Don't we want to meet? And, and you know, there, there was like months and months of these discussions, , and I said, I, I don't understand the world. I like, it can't possibly be that we are delaying starting the research by five months or something, because we can't agree that if we'll fall, it'll be our insurance or their insurance.

Dan Ariely (53:33): And, and even the proposal to have it in the third party site that have insurance. I said, like, you know, I, I said, like, what don't I understand? You know, don't we have a mission to move forward delaying everything by five months to figure this out? Isn't this counterproductive to all of our times, experiences, experiences like this make me feel that like the, there's like, there's something deep that I don't understand about how the world works. Like, you know, it's like feels to me like, who came up with this idea? Why , why are they talking about this? Why isn't anybody willing to, to take a step and say, okay, we'll sign, let's, let's move forward.

Dr Robin Stern (54:17): And somebody more vulnerable to being gaslighted might say, I don't understand what's going on in the world. There must be something wrong with me. And I, I think it's great that you're saying there must be something wrong with the world. 'cause You know what?

Dan Ariely (54:34): The whole world is wrong. I'm okay , maybe that's, that's a different kind of a problem.

Dr Robin Stern (54:39): I mean, there's plenty wrong with the world. And often when people are beginning to name gaslighting or discomfort and pain and depression in their relationships, there's something very wrong in their relationships. And I would say if you think there's something really wrong with what's going on, there's likely something really wrong with what's going on. So unfortunately, we are out of time. I so enjoy being with you and talking with you and your insights, your wisdom, and thank you for all the amazing work you're doing in the world. And please tell people where they can find you.

Dan Ariely (55:20): I have a website, dana.com, D-A-N-A-R-I-E-L y.com, and I have the Center for Advanced Bureaucracy . If anybody wants to wants to check it.

Dr Robin Stern (55:34): Thank you so much, Dan, for being with me and for being here with our listeners. I'm sure it was very meaningful to everyone who tuned in, and I hope to have another conversation with you at some point. That would be lovely. Really,

Dan Ariely (55:47): It'll be a delight. And Robin, thank you very much for the time, and very nice to meet you.

Dr Robin Stern (55:51): Very nice to meet you too. Thank you. And everyone see you for the next episode of the Gaslight Effect podcast. Thanks for joining me for today's episode. I hope you found it helpful and meaningful. If you want to listen to other episodes of the Gaslight Effect podcast, you can find them@robinstern.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. And please leave a rating and a review. I also invite you to follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. This podcast is produced by Mel Yellen, Mike Lens, and me. All of my work is supported by Susan Petit Becki DeVall and Omaginarium, also by Sally McCarton and Jacqui Daniels. I'm so grateful to have many people supporting me and especially grateful for all of you, my listeners.