Uncertainty is Not the Enemy

24:37Brené Brown:But I'd also add to the list some combination of privilege and agency. Like, I think about if one of my children was caught in a position, bartending and waiting tables that I was caught in. They would never have to stay there for more than five minutes because I am a safety net for them. And I think in today's employment environment, it's hard to find a job right now. I mean, it's really hard depending on what your skill set is and your industry is. So I think this is when our commitment to curiosity really pays off. All right. Should we go to the next question? Yeah, let's do it. A really beautiful question about the apologizing.

25:22Brené Brown:The person wrote, I know the apologies between you and Adam were personal. Is there anything you can tell us about repair that we could learn from? Are there any like toolkits or ideas about repair that could be helpful? And I think we're both bringing one to the table. So you go first. All right. So I've learned a lot from Beth Poland's research on what I've come to think of as the five R's of an apology, which are regret, rationale, responsibility, repentance, and repair. So regret is basically showing remorse. And that's the typical, I'm so sorry that I made you feel this way, or I'm so sorry that happened.

26:09That turns out, though, in the research to be less important than some of the other components. I think the rationale is kind of table stakes to explain what you were thinking or, you know, why you made the mistake you did. But the part that I think most people overlook that really matters is responsibility. Saying, this is on me. Either I caused the problem or I contributed to the problem or, you know, I don't even know what caused the problem. but I am taking responsibility for preventing it from happening again. And I think that goes to repentance, which is basically making a commitment to do better.

26:49I love the saying, the best apology is change behavior. Yeah, me too. And you're almost there when you've expressed regret, you've given your rationale, and you've taken responsibility and repented. But ultimately, repair is demonstrating that you mean it all by not committing another offense and failing to change your actions. And to me, if you do those things, you've shown that you take really seriously the offense or the impact of your actions and you are sincere about your desire to make it right. And I think if I could pick two, I would say I want responsibility and repair. I want you to say, here's what I own that I did wrong or that I need to change.

27:35And then I want you to prove it. through following through and actually walking your talk.

27:42Brené Brown:I agree on all counts. And I am bringing to the conversation Harriet Lerner's work. Harriet Lerner was a clinician at Menninger for many, many, many, many years. And she actually, funnily enough, she wrote the first kind of self-reflection psychology book I ever read called The Dance of Anger. And my mom gave it to me as a cassette, a cassette on, you know, like a book on tape. And I remember getting it in the mail and it's, you know, the dance of anger. And I was like, I don't know. And then a month later, did you read it? No. Did you listen to it yet? No. And then now it's like, oh, okay, I get it.

28:20Brené Brown:I did a two-part interview with her on Unlocking Us. And she has kind of nine essential ingredients of a true apology. I want to go through them pretty quickly, but they're going to line up very much with the research you're talking about. One, I hate this part. It does not include the word but. Get your butt out of the way. That's a hard one for me sometimes, but it doesn't include the word but. Keeps the focus on your actions and not on the other person's response. Includes an offer of reparation or restitution that fits the situation. It does not overdo, which I think is really interesting.

28:57Brené Brown:Does not get caught up in who's more to blame or who started it. Requires that you do your best to avoid a repeat of performance. It should never serve to silence, which I think is really interesting. Have you ever been on the receiving end of apology that was very much meant to just like, and that's the final word? We're done here. Yeah, we're done here. I don't ever want to speak to this again. Eight, it shouldn't be offered to make you feel better if it risks making the hurt party feel worse. God, this is complicated and really good. And then nine, does not ask the hurt party to do anything, not even to forgive.

29:39Brené Brown:Yes. Yes. What do you think? I mean, the complimentarity is great, but the one, well, two things. One, I think the but is such an important qualifier. And two, that last one, there is a sixth R in the apology research, which is a request for forgiveness. And that has always bothered me because I don't think you should be asking something of the person you're trying to make amends to. Agree. You're putting the burden on them. I think it's up to you to earn their forgiveness, but you shouldn't be seeking it. You should try to make it right because it's the right thing to do. Okay. I got to tell you a really funny story.

30:24Brené Brown:You got to watch this shit with your own kids. Let me tell you why. we were very conscious when Ellen and Charlie were little that they would apologize to one another to you know we would apologize to them I did not grow up with parents who apologized so we were very Steve and I were both very quick to apologize to our kids and one of the things we taught our kids was to never say that's okay, but to say thank you. And I never thought much about it except like, look at me, PBS, NPR mom, you know, like, you know, giving myself a pat on the back and, you know, and then one day I really got frustrated with one of my kids and I knocked on their door and I was like, I came to apologize.

31:19Brené Brown:I got scared and I can get scary when I'm scared and that's not okay. And I apologize for how I showed up in that conversation. It was not helpful and it did not honestly convey my excitement about you trying this new thing. And my kid looked right at me and said, thank you. I was like, what the shit? What are you? I was like, wait, what? I was so dumbfounded. I was like, wait, this is the part where you go, that's okay, mom. I totally get it. You just, you know, you got some mama bear in you sometimes and, you know, nothing. Just a solemn, like this, this is what you're doing the whole time. Okay.

32:08Brené Brown:Thank you. I was like, fucking grounded for a month. You got no validation. No, no. No acceptance there whatsoever. That's so funny. You know, we've had a similar conversation in our family. And what's hit me that I never had thought about going in, which might be missing from both of our favorite apology frameworks, is I think when people come in with that's okay, what the apologizer is really looking for is a we're okay. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that distinction is so important. I want to, when, when I have wronged someone, including when I wronged you, Brene, I don't want you to tell me that was okay.

32:53It wasn't okay. I'm not okay with the impact that I had, but I do want to know that we're okay and that we can still respect each other and like each other despite the mistake that I made.

33:05Brené Brown:But you know what? I do think that is, I do think that is asking the hurt party to, because I think there have been times where I've given an apology to someone and I've literally asked, are we okay? And I've had that person say, not quite yet. And so I think that I am looking for we're okay, but I don't get to dictate the timeline for that. So I just think the, I appreciate the apology. Thank you. I will tell you, it's hard to hear. Like, I do think there's an, I don't know. I really wanted to respond with, well, you're grounded, you little smart ass, but, but I was actually so proud. It's like when your kids beat you at sports, you're either like, I'm going to beat you and I feel great.

33:56Brené Brown:Or you just beat me and Hey, I raised you either way. I'm awesome. So great. Yeah. It does. It does feel like a rejection a little bit though. And I wonder if you, I wonder if a modification of it is to say something to the effect of, I hope we'll be okay. No, I still think that's putting too much on someone. I actually don't think it's a rejection. I actually think it is when, when my, when they looked back at me and said, thank you. I think it just left me sitting in my own accountability. And like, I think half my family are very, you know, half of us are very fast processors. Great. let's go grab some Chinese food.

34:38Brené Brown:And the other half are like, it's going to be a while before I'm okay. And that's my timeline and my call. As it should be. Oh, no, I eat it. Okay. It was a great question. So I'm glad.

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36:39Brené Brown:And boy, this is going to put us right in an area where we see the world differently. Are you ready? I'm ready. Okay. Back on LinkedIn, Cecile wrote, looking forward to the new podcast. How about this for a topic? Does great leadership require the courage to remain uncertain? And how do we show our uncertainty or hide it? And does it depend? She writes, and I love this because it's one of my favorite quotes from a book. She said, here's the context for this. In Robert Harris's novel, Conclave, the dean of the College of Cardinals gives an opening sermon where he warned that certainty can be dangerous in matters of faith because it closes the mind.

37:23Brené Brown:I love this quote from Conclave. I mean, I was so excited to see it on LinkedIn because I always think it's, you know, like a secret quote that only I'm obsessed with. But I will, let me read the quote to you. My brothers and sisters, in the course of a long life in the service of our mother, the church, let me tell you that the one sin I have come to fear more than any other is certainty. Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. It goes on with this. This line goes on to, it concludes the quote, our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt.

38:02Brené Brown:If there was only certainty and there was no doubt, there would be no mystery and therefore no need for faith. I love Cecile's question about whether the ability to be in uncertainty is a strength or a deficit for a leader. I actually love the mysteries of faith, but I am not sure. And I want to ask you this as the org psychologist that you are. I'm not sure that we're neurobiologically hardwired for the amount of uncertainty we're facing right now. I want all your thoughts. I want your thoughts. This is such a great topic. I know. I want your thoughts on faith is only faith when it walks hand in hand with doubt.

38:45Brené Brown:and I want your thoughts on our hardwiring for certainty. Well, I'm not qualified to weigh in on the first one because I don't know anything about faith. Were you raised agnostic or atheist or just not, religion was not a big part? Yeah, I just don't remember thinking much about it, talking much about it. Got it. I think the second part though, I have a fair amount, I have a reasonable amount of knowledge on, but you can calibrate me. So I'm not convinced. Sorry, I love that. Throwback to the last episode on metacognition. We're calibrating each other. I like it, go. Bring it on. You always calibrate me.

39:31And I think that's one of the most fun things about learning from you. Same. Is you are not shy about saying, nope, nope. I don't think you got that right.

39:40Brené Brown:No, neither are you. And it would be so boring if we were. True. So I think we are absolutely hardwired for the level of uncertainty we're experiencing. I actually think we're hardwired for much more uncertainty than we're experiencing. I mean, can you imagine, if you think about where our hardwiring comes from in our evolutionary history, imagine not knowing at any moment in daily life if there was going to be a creature emerging from the jungle that would attack you. not knowing if all of a sudden the heavens would send a tsunami or an earthquake to destroy your entire life. I think not only were there threats that we just had no tools and systems to deal with, but we didn't even understand what was causing them.

40:29Think about all the diseases that people just died of. And they didn't know that germs were a thing. They didn't know that you needed to avoid eating certain plants, right? There was tremendous uncertainty in daily life. And you could just be fine one moment and die the next moment and have no idea what the cause was going to be. And I think we live in a much more certain, much more predictable world now than the world we were hardwired in. And so I would diagnose the problem differently.

41:00Brené Brown:Okay. But let me pause there. I'm really curious to hear your reaction. No, keep going. I don't, I, I, I'm, I'm absorbing. Okay. So I guess my, my differential, the different lens I would bring to this is to say, I think we actually, what we lack is not the wiring, but rather the practice in dealing with uncertainty precisely because we have built a world that shields us from it. That like anytime there is a problem, we know where to turn. I think it's why so many people struggled with COVID is all of a sudden you weren't sure if you could trust your doctor, maybe for the first time in your life.

41:41Or, you know, maybe when you've dealt with that in the past, you at least knew where to go for a second opinion and you knew what specialists to see. And now you weren't even sure if those people were accurate. And I think that what we're facing now is a tension between our hard wiring, which is very much primed to respond to threats, and our experience, which doesn't necessarily equip us to deal with the kinds of threats and the sources of uncertainty that we're now facing, which would include AI, climate change, political instability and turbulence. and what have I forgotten?

42:21Brené Brown:I am really taking this in. Okay. Yeah. I have like - Pause cast. Here it is. Yeah, the pause cast.

42:33Okay.

42:33Brené Brown:So I want to walk through what your thinking is. It's really interesting to me. Can we agree? Can we go to some underlying assumptions and start to see where things take different paths. Because I'm not as, I think there's a lot of merit in what you're saying, actually. And for some reason, it doesn't feel as opposed to, I want to understand where the differences and where the similarities lie. So can we agree that our brains are wired to treat uncertainty as a threat and that ambiguity activates the same neural stress response as danger, as physical danger, that ambiguity and physical danger are very similar in terms of our threat response to it?

43:23Yes, with the caveat that there are pretty strong individual differences. So if we allow for the fact that there's a personality trait or two that will lead some people to not treat uncertainty as a threat, yeah, I think on average, yes. Okay.

43:37Brené Brown:So let's talk about intolerance of uncertainty. Are you familiar with that field? Okay. Oh boy. Did y 'all see that look? I hope y 'all caught that look. Aaron, I want you to do a double zoom in on that look. That is the freaking Adam Grant. Oh yeah. Let's go. You want to dance? You want to talk? Intolerance of uncertainty? You want to talk? You know, So rubbish show, like, let's go. Okay, I know that look. I love this look. Okay, so let's just walk people through it. So intolerance of uncertainty, a measurable cognitive vulnerability, not a personality weakness, right? That there is an intolerance for uncertainty and that it drives a lot of the anxiety spectrum, right?

44:25Brené Brown:Weigh in, go ahead. Yes, and it's so pervasive that for people who have a strong intolerance for uncertainty, they would actually rather hear bad news or criticism than just not know. Certain negative information is more reassuring to them than uncertain possibly positive information, which tells me this goes really deep. Who would rather be told they sucked than just not get feedback? Somebody who does not like uncertainty. Hey, I'd rather have bad news than no news. I mean, that's like, that's the whole thing. I mean, I just did, we did a fun kind of launch for Maya Shankour's new book. And she was referencing some uncertainty research about where there, you probably know this research.

45:16Brené Brown:I don't know it that well, but I relate to it, where you had a choice of there's a 50, 50 % chance you'd get a shock or a hundred percent chance that you'd get a shock. The majority of people chose the hundred percent chance. The hundred. Of course. Me too. Me too. Because in the 50-50, you suffer twice, right? No, yes. But what would you pick? I think it depends on how severe the shock is. Okay, let's just say it's tolerable, but uncomfortable. The shock is bad. You go for the 50-50. But let's say it's uncomfortable, but tolerable. I mean, you're not going to get any other shit through a human subject.

45:47Brené Brown:So let's say. I think old me would have chosen the 100, and I hope new me would choose the 50-50. So you have some empathy for people that I'd rather have bad news. Oh, yeah. I think I might, I mean, I might still be one of them. I've been one of them for a lot of my life, for sure. You? I don't think. I think when you get to my age, you've lived through enough bad news that you'll roll the dice with the 50-50. Do you know what I mean? Like, I just think waiting one more day for the callback is really tough, but it's not as tough as, you know, you're not going to be put out of your misery with a really terrible call at nine o 'clock on Monday.

46:27Brené Brown:that's always going to be worse than a five o 'clock at Tuesday call that was good news. You know, so I think I have aged into some tolerance, but not in a, not from like becoming smarter, just having lived through some more bad news. You are tracking with the lifespan development trends where as people move from their twenties toward their fifties and sixties, they do tend to be a little more comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity over time. And I think you're right. There's something to the life experience there. I also want to know, can we accelerate that? Can we help people become more comfortable with uncertainty when they are in their 20s?

47:12Brené Brown:Okay. So given that we come from, given that we understand, we do believe that our brains are wired to create, to perceive uncertainty as a threat. and barring some personality differences we can experience the same kind of neural stress response to physical danger as we do to ambiguity or not knowing I'm trying to make sense of the comparison from a biological evolutionary perspective that you're saying to today. And I'll tell you why, like, is there any cultural relevance? Like back then, like you knew like 50 % of your family is going to, you know, be dinner for something. And today we're sold a bill of goods that human life should be happy and certain.

48:07Brené Brown:And is that part of capitalism and marketing? And so are there other cultural forces at play today that make uncertainty, wait, let me, let me think about this. Are there cultural forces today that make uncertainty more difficult because certainty is positioned as an acquirable privilege? Wow. That if you're wealthy enough, smart enough, white enough, straight enough, male enough, like that you can privilege your way, that it is possible to be a human and privilege your way into a certain life? It's a big question. Yeah, it is. I, you know, it's, it's interesting. I was, I was going somewhere similar, which is, I think that, you know, in the past, if we rewind a lot of industrial revolution progress and understanding in the world, I think that uncertainty was expected and accepted.

49:12And now there's an increasingly common assumption that I will not have to deal with unpredictability in my life. And when that assumption is violated, it's very uncomfortable. I see this all the time with our students who, if you talk about the bill they were sold, The bill they were sold is, like every generation before you, you're going to be better off than your parents were. And all of a sudden, confronting the uncertainty of, I don't know if I'm going to find a job when I was supposed to have a better job than my parents got. What is that? That's not right. That's not fair. How am I supposed to thrive and survive in that world?

49:52And I think that that is hugely threatening against the backdrop of those expectations, that it was going to be predictable, certain. And let me say another word that I think is core to what the problem is, which is controllable.

50:05Brené Brown:Yes, controllable. I don't actually think that what people are looking for is certainty or predictability. I think what they're looking for is control. And uncertainty threatens their ability to feel like they are in charge of their destiny. God, it's like, it's like, I'm just, I don't know why the first thing that pops up for me, It's going to be random and you have to promise me if I say it out loud, we're not going to go on a rabbit trail. But the first thing that comes up for me when you say, when you're talking about the relationship between uncertainty and control is how enmeshed the relationship is between addiction and shame.

50:47Brené Brown:That researchers really have a hard time temporally understanding which comes first. but I feel like that, I just have that same feeling when you talk about control and uncertainty. Like, it's just, it's like, are they, are they the same things and which came first? And what do we need more of? It's, it's almost so inextricably connected. And I don't want to lose the point either that, but say it. No, no, go ahead. Okay. I don't want to lose the point either that, you know, there's a, there's a, there's a storytelling mechanism that I think about all the time, which is world building, you know, so when you're going to tell a story, especially a fiction story, you build the world first.

51:27Brené Brown:So like, if you're going to tell the story of Lord of the Rings, you know, you've got the hero's journey, but first you build the world. So everyone understands the world in which the protagonist is acting. And, and, you know, I think part of, part of today, the world building is if you do everything right, you can have less uncertainty and more control. And it plays into everything. I mean, the way everything is marketed, advertising, it plays into politics, which I wanna get into. But the world building today leverages that the human brain and our threats and our fears around control and uncertainty.

52:13Brené Brown:Do you agree? Yeah, I do. And I think the thing that jumps out at me about control being a really important piece of this puzzle is I think about the classic Glass and Singer experiments with stress where people are blasted with these uncomfortably loud bursts of noise. And this is exactly in the range that you were describing earlier of it's tolerable, but it is definitely not pleasant. and in one version of these experiments, people are given a button they could press and they find the blast of noise less unpleasant even though they never pressed the button because they knew they could control.

53:01Brené Brown:Oh my God, those people are Texans. That's a Texas woman. Those are Texas women. And I'm going to tell you, those are Texas women. I'm going to tell you why. This is why I hold my purse while I'm on the side of a stage before they call my name out to talk to 8 ,000 people. I need to have my pocketbook and an exit strategy if you want me to do something at all times. I'm not, I've never run, but I need my pocketbook or my purse, whatever y 'all call it, the purse. And I need an exit strategy and I won't use it. But if you don't give it to me, fuck you, I'm leaving. and that's i think you're reacting not just to the uncertainty but to the the threat to control i mean have you checked out texas men recently yeah like i mean yeah there are there are some good ones but there are some not great ones so so yes like okay so they do better if they have an off-ramp yeah even if they don't use it just knowing i could press the button to shield myself from the noise is enough to help me cope with the, the, ugh, that's not good.

54:09But also the uncertainty of, but I don't know when it's going to come and I don't know exactly how loud it's going to be. And maybe, you know, I think you're right. It may be that the desire for control leads us to dislike uncertainty. It may be that the desire for some degree of certainty leads us to dislike a lack of control. having control might be the most important antidote that we have to the sense of uncertainty that people are struggling with.

54:38Brené Brown:Yes. I mean, just give me my pocketbook and a protein bar and a diet Coke. I will all be up for anything, but I'm going to have my own money. I'm going to have my own protein bar and I'm going to have my own diet Coke and then we'll see how it goes. But at any point I can tuck and roll and go like that. That is just that. I mean, why are you laughing? Don't roll. Don't roll if the Diet Coke is open. No, I will always save the Diet Coke. So, okay. So let me, this is so interesting. I want to read this research to you. This is from Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions on Uncertainty Avoidance, which I love across cultural studies.

55:18Brené Brown:You are looking like you are gunning for a conversation. I like it. I'm in your territory here. I love it. So the principle is that, and this is true across cultures, many cultures, his research, Hofstede's research found that entire societies are organized around managing uncertainty through religion, law, and technology. Okay. I'm going to go on now and I'm going to move, I'm going to move from Hofstead into compensatory control theory, which I love, which is because McGregor. Yes. Cause this is a part of terror management theory. So, okay. So let me just back it up. So let me just, we'll, we'll have an, in order to not like nerd out on y 'all, like what just happened.

56:02Brené Brown:Example 1A, Adam Grant. You're just, you're just citing like you're, you went right from like, you went right from organizational behavior to psychology. And it's like, you're, you are, you're in the center of my world. In your universe. Okay. Welcome to my playground. Welcome. I think this is where the weirdos live and think. I like it, but I'm going to, we're going to put all the references in, um, the notes, the show notes. Our team member, Paul is amazing at doing that. So he will hook you up if you want to nerd out. Okay. So Hofstede's research says that entire societies organize around managing uncertainty through religion, law, and technology, when uncertainty spikes, this is now going into control, kind of compensatory control theory.

56:47Brené Brown:When uncertainty spikes, economic threat, loss of control, humiliation, mortality reminders, mortality reminders happening everywhere right now, the psychological demand for certainty does not just increase. It accelerates. And this is huge. This is, is it Jost? I always pronounce this researcher's name's Jost. Jost. Yeah, Jost. This is universal. No ideology, education level, or income bracket is immune. So we try to create certainty in societies with religion, law, and technology. When uncertainty spikes, the demand for certainty doesn't just go up. It accelerates. And this is universal across ideologies, education levels, and income brackets.

57:47Brené Brown:What clusterfuckery does this set us up for politically? I mean, this is the world we're seeing right now. I think it explains a lot of the polarization and extremism that we've been tracking across countries, which is in response to increasing levels of uncertainty. One, you get what McGregor called defensive zeal, which is this kind of, it's a compensatory conviction response where, okay, the world is unstable and I'm not sure what's gonna happen. So I am going to cling to an ideology. I'm going to cling to a political tribe that gives me a sense of coherence and order. Like a buoy in an ocean.

58:27Yeah, I think that's a great metaphor. for it. And I won't let it go because it is my survival raft. I think the other thing it gives us is something we didn't touch on in our conversation about narcissistic leadership in our third episode, which is this is under uncertainty. That's when people gravitate toward authoritarians and narcissists who peddle certainty, who promise that they have all the answers, who are basically, they're charlatans and snake oil salespeople. And yet they are more appealing to people. This is some brand new research that has come out in the last year or so. That leadership, authoritarian leadership, leadership that's high certainty is more appealing to people who have low self-esteem, who are searching for somebody that will make them feel like, yeah, I can handle the challenges.

59:22We are in good hands. And it's almost like it's, they're getting lulled into a false sense of security and safety by people who are overconfident and persuading them that like, yeah, yeah, I will take care of everything as opposed to just accepting the world is complex. It's messy. We're not sure exactly what's going to happen.

59:46Brené Brown:oh my god yeah sound familiar yes no i'm i'm i'm thinking about the research term uh mortality salience do you know this work terror management theory greenberg and solomon and and pizinski yes and pizinski you are so scary when it comes to these things like where were you when i was getting my phd i would have been like let me just pontificate here and if you could just attach I'll attach every idea to some peer-reviewed. Okay. So this is terror management that I think is interesting. When reminded of death or existential threat, people cling harder to leaders who promise protection and meaning.

1:00:28Brené Brown:Let me read it again. This is terror management theory. When reminded of death or existential threat, people cling harder to leaders who promise protection and meaning. This is mortality salience. Oh my God. Listen, I mean, I mean, I mean, God, this is happening. This is happening. I mean, this is like a lot of people clinging to their buoy in the shit soup. I mean, a Brown 2026.

1:01:08Oh, okay.

1:01:09Brené Brown:Let's just do this. Go ahead. I do want to caveat that some of the terror management findings have failed to replicate in the last few years. Well, there have been, I mean, obviously, social psychology has undergone what's been called a replication crisis. And I think underpowered studies that didn't have big enough sample sizes or in some cases were not well designed have not stood up to scrutiny when replicated many, many times with larger pools of participants. But I think that this particular effect seems to be robust, that when people are facing a threat, whether it's to their lives or their livelihoods, they will gravitate toward people who offer them a false sense of certainty and security.

1:02:03and I think that is, you know, it's dangerous in terms of who we let run our workplaces. It's dangerous in terms of who we let run our countries. And it's something that we don't have great societal solutions to. It's like, we'll lower the threat level. Good luck with that one. How are we going to solve that at a country or a societal scale? So Brene, I want to ask you as a social worker. How do you think about what we can do in our own lives and in the local systems that we actually do have influence over with our teams, with our families to manage the uncertainty level so that it doesn't become an overwhelming threat?

1:02:44Brené Brown:So I think the two things that come up for me that are both kind of research-based right off the bat is critical thinking education and everything that this administration has banned, critical theory, critical thinking. I think that there is, there are a lot, I think there's evidence that to be able to think critically and through a systems theory lens, like we used to teach our students, follow the money, you know, just, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, I think some critical thinking. I think intellectual humility. I also think building connection and community. So I think when community connection and community trust is high, I think we're less, our susceptibility is lower when we have levels of community trust.

1:03:32Brené Brown:This is an idea that I had never heard of, and I'm so interesting. I really hope you know it. Do you know inoculation and pre-bunking? As a way to fight disinformation? Yes. Yes. I'm thinking of Sander von der Linden, for example. Yes. Yes. I don't know how you do that. It's wild to me. So learning to recognize manipulation techniques, not just specific false claims before you're exposed to them. So I think the studies that I came across and read, and I'm going to fully just say, I just read abstracts and then I read the top and the bottom, which I know is dangerous in itself, but this idea that not to teach people the content of what false ideas are, but to help to teach pre-bunking by teaching them most common ways misinformation is distributed.

1:04:25Brené Brown:What do you know about it? Tell us about it. Because it's like, I want my kids to have this. I want this. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, some of this is basic media literacy training, right? To interrogate sources as opposed to just accepting them. To have standards of evidence and say, okay, let me see. Is this claim backed by a randomized controlled trial or by a longitudinal study? If not, it might just be someone's opinion. I think that we spend so much time putting out little fires as opposed to zooming out and asking, what is causing the forest fire? The problem that we need to solve is not there's a specific piece of misinformation that people are buying into.

1:05:09It's that people lack the tools to evaluate information accurately. And also, sometimes they lack the motivation to evaluate it accurately. There was some research that Jay Van Bevel turned me on to showing that you could get people to be less likely to spread fake news, demonstrably false information on social media just by prompting them to consider, is this true? And that people weren't, by default, they weren't thinking about, is this accurate? They were thinking about, could this be true? Or is this interesting? Is this going to get me likes and shares? And so they just kind of instinctively posted it or reposted it.

1:05:50And just getting them to pause and reflect and ask the question, is this true, was enough to reduce the rate of spreading bad information. And so I think that this is partially a skill problem. It's partially a motivation problem.

1:06:06Brené Brown:Yeah, I mean, the algorithms are not, don't reward truth and complexity. the algorithms reward misinformation vitriol you know i mean it's just i think it's i think it's it's and and i will say that like ai and unskilled users of ai ai can be so sycophantic that you can really go in and i will just i mean i think i've told you this before, we did all of the lit review with human researchers and a parallel team that was using just AI for the lit review. And 60 to 70 % of the sources, including a source that said, had Brown and Grant. As in MIT Sloan was completely a hallucination. And AI gave the same weight to a real peer-reviewed academic article as it did, you know, Reddit user, I got a new boat, you know?

1:07:10Brené Brown:And so I think this is an interesting conversation. We're at the end of time. I do want to thank the people who are writing in questions and comments and, you know, taking the time just to say, to give feedback on the podcast, which we love and we're open to, and also, you know, writing things like, hey, I want you to go deeper here. or I disagree with this. Can y 'all revisit it and think about this perspective? I'm so grateful for that. I love, I miss community of discourse and debate and ideas because it's not just harder to find these days. So I'm grateful for that. What are you grateful for today?

1:07:50Oh, well, I don't want to be redundant, but I'm actually grateful to have an audience of people with us and a partner in, what's the opposite of crime? In attempting to offer something useful to the world. Yeah. A partner in detective work, whatever it is, who don't take uncertainty as a threat, but take it as an occasion for curiosity. And I think that, you know, that's part of what this show is about. I think that it's so easy to cling to the comfort of certainty and ignore the discomfort of doubt. But I think doubt is where the learning happens. And it's often the engine of curiosity. Yeah, 100%.

1:08:36We need more of it.

1:08:37Brené Brown:And I know that you're not a faith person, but can I just share one quote before we go by one of my faith mentors, Father Richard Rohr. I thought it just reminded me of us a little bit. He writes, this is Richard Rohr's writing. My scientist friends have come up with things like principles of uncertainty and dark holes. They're willing to live inside imagined hypotheses and theories, but many religious folks insist on answers that are always true. We love closure, resolution, and clarity while thinking that we are the people of faith. How strange that the very word faith has come to mean its opposite.

1:09:10Brené Brown:It's interesting. We can agree on that, I think. I did not expect to get my now new favorite take on scientific thinking and uncertainty from a religious figure. Yeah. Well played. Richard Rohr. All right. I'll see you next time. The Curiosity Shop is produced by Brene Brown Education and Research Group and Granted Productions. You can subscribe to The Curiosity Shop on YouTube or follow in your favorite podcast app. We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more award-winning shows at podcast.voxmedia.com.

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