Feb 25, 2020
Episode 23: Jason Marsh, Greater Good Science Center, “Advancing
Well-Being and Happiness through Research”
How do we advance and spread something that is so essential yet
seemingly difficult to grasp as “happiness” and “well-being”? Jason
Marsh joins us today for an engaging discussion about how The
Greater Good Science Center at Berkeley is doing just that with
their open source method of sharing their research. What they have
found is building happiness and well-being is about the cultivation
of relationships, how we expand our concept of the “in” group, how
we make the distinction between empathy and compassion, and how we
can improve the conditions to make each and every contact with the
people we interact with more positive.
In this episode, Jason discusses how outcomes can change when we
know what is expected of us, like when children play “The Wall
Street Game” vs. “The Cooperation Game.” And how the Bridging
Differences study breaks down the barriers between those we see as
different. Human beings have an innate draw towards kindness and
compassion yet also the pervasiveness to dehumanize people we
disagree with. How do we stimulate the positive natural impulses so
we can bridge that gap between what we hope to see in the world vs.
what we do see in the world? Listen in on this fascinating
discussion so we can build a happier and healthier world.
Show highlights:
- Shrinking the change, clearing the path and making research
accessible
- Making research more applicable to people’s everyday lives
- Combatting the pervasiveness we have to dehumanize people we
disagree with
- How we expand the “in” group so we can be more generous and
kind
- Knowing what is expected of us and how that impacts
behavior
- Conditions that make contact more positive: 1) Equal Status 2)
taking cues from leaders 3) common goals and seeing my fate as
linked with other’s fate
- Evidence that health outcomes and other outcomes are poorer
when there is a larger disparity between people
- Defining suffering and the difference between empathy and
compassion
- Studies on kindness and compassion out of Harvard – seeing an
18-month old observe an adult drop something and need help
- What is result of entire lifetime of cues that child sees, even
subtle ones and cultivating mindfulness
- Pro-social vs. anti-social behavior and the impact of having
just one positive relationship with an adult at school
- The Greater Good Science Center method of open source as an end
game for spread (Gugalev and Stern) and thinking though
sustainability with open source model
- Pyramid of Engagement for sustainability – professional
products and experiences for those who want to go deeper and
funneling (the both/and model)
- Is human nature good or bad? The deeply rooted instincts we
have both for care and to do bad things as well. But how do our
environments elicit one or the other?
- We become more self-interested when we feel scarcity and feel
threatened or scared
- We often think that the world has become more violent but the
historical look shows that violence is actually significantly lower
than centuries ago
Links:
https://ggsc.berkeley.edu/
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/bridging_differences/definition
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/podcasts/item/episode_57_why_shared_goals_can_bridge_divides
Steven Pinker – “The Blank Slate”
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