Dr. Maya Shankar
Maya Shankar is a cognitive scientist who served as a Senior Advisor in the Obama White House, where she founded and served as Chair of the White House Behavioral Science…
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Maya chats with her friend and fellow cognitive scientist Dr. Katy Milkman about science-based strategies to help you inspire change in your own life.
Dr. Katy Milkman
My research group has studied this phenomenon where at the beginning of a new chapter in your life, you are more motivated and likely to make a change.
Maya Shankar
That's Dr. Katy Milkman, author of the book How to Change.
Dr. Katy Milkman
Moments when you leave college and you shift identities and take on a new role, or when you become a parent, those moments, they feel like new beginnings and chapter breaks in our lives, and they free us from the baggage that we had before. A lot of people who do make big change are looking at moments that feel like breaking points and doing it.
Maya Shankar
Dr. Katy Milkman is a professor of behavioral economics at the University of Pennsylvania. She's also a friend and collaborator. We got to work together on some projects when I was in the Obama White House, and she happens to be an expert on change. As you know, this show is all about how people navigate the big changes in life. We're talking swing for the fences change your life type changes. What Katy's research has taught me over the years is that small tweaks to our mindset and daily behaviors can actually inspire big change within ourselves.
I've personally been using insights from Katy's research in my own life for a while now. In this special episode, Katy and I dive deep into the science of change. I hope our conversation will leave you with some valuable tips to help you approach change differently in your own life. I'm Maya Shankar, and this is A Slight Change of Plans. Well, Katy, I was curious to know how you got into the topic of change.
Dr. Katy Milkman
Honestly, I was in love with behavioral science, but it took me a little while to figure out that I wanted to focus on change. What happened is I went to a seminar over at the med school and there's a bunch of brilliant people over there thinking about behavioral science and medicine. How can we help patients make better decisions? How can we improve the decisions of doctors as well? I was in this seminar and a graph went up, which normally doesn't change your life, but this graph changed my life. The graph just showed a breakdown of how many premature deaths are due to different causes, from accidents to environment, to daily decisions.
And 40% of premature deaths turn out to be the result of decisions that we can change on a daily basis about things like whether or not we drink or smoke, what we eat, whether or not we're physically active, we buckle our seat belts. Those kinds of decisions accumulate more than I could have ever imagined. I had just no idea of the magnitude. When I saw that and realized the tools of behavioral science could be applied to improve health outcomes and health decisions, I could have this enormous impact.
Then I started thinking like, okay, well, if it matters that much with health, it's obvious that it would accumulate in areas like savings and education similarly, even if I've never seen an exact breakdown of that sort. That really just got me excited about the potential to use this thing that I found so interesting, so exciting and fun to actually have an impact. That was it for me. I'm really curious about how your journey changed, because you've had many career shifts, but you certainly went from a more laboratory based focus to jumping into the White House to tackle change head on from a policy perspective. How did you shift?
Maya Shankar
It's interesting, because in my mind, my big shift in life was from the violin to cognitive science. But I'm just remembering like, oh wait, I also had this other really big shift. You're helping me remember that.
Dr. Katy Milkman
You've had a lot of you have big changes. You're the perfect person to host this podcast.
Maya Shankar
I think this is true across science too, but certainly when we were working in the government, the stakes feel so high. You just can't screw up, because these are real people's lives and they can be affected by the work you're doing. It's so funny, I mean, we actually worked together on some projects. Actually one of them used an insight from your book and it was the fresh start effect. I'm curious if you can share what the fresh start effect is. It was very exciting at the time to have hot off the presses research coming out of your lab actually applied to a problem that we are trying to solve in the government.
Dr. Katy Milkman
My research group has studied this phenomenon where at the beginning of a new chapter in your life, you are more motivated and likely to make a change. We've often studied small changes in this context, like you go to the gym more, or you search on Google for the term diet more frequently, or you're more likely to set a goal on a goal setting website. But I also think where the interest in this topic came from was the realization that a lot of people who do make big change are looking at moments that feel like breaking points and doing it. I tell stories about bigger changes in my book, moments when you leave college and you shift identities and take on a new role, or when you become a parent.
Those moments, they feel like new beginnings and chapter breaks in our lives. I think they're freeing in a way. They free us from the baggage that we had before, but they can also be freeing psychologically because we feel like you're a new person. You can take on a new identity. Whatever wasn't working before, whatever ambition you failed to have before, you can shed that and say, "Okay, now I can do it." Anyway, I do think we could study big change. I actually think some of the research we've done around small change is inspired by a recognition that these might also be the triggers for big change.
Maya Shankar
Was there a particular moment in your life where you felt the fresh start effect play out, where it really felt like a new beginning and there was a certain set of habits or behavior changes that you witnessed?
Dr. Katy Milkman
Oh my gosh. I mean, I do mesearch, so totally, meaning a lot of my research is motivated by like, "Oh wow! That's weird. I wonder if other people," and then I ask my friends, "Oh yes, me too." And then I realize, okay, this might be something we're studying. I will say one example that I love is that I realized I wanted to write this book for a long time. Finally, what happened that triggered it, when I actually began, my son was three years old. We decided we were going to move out of our apartment into a house.
We bought the house. We signed the papers. And that day I said, "You know what? I'm ready. We're moving to a new house. It's a fresh start. This is the moment." And the project started from there. That was a big one for me.
Maya Shankar
Interesting. One of the anecdotes around the fresh start that I love the most is Obama decided that he would stop smoking for good when the Affordable Care Act passed. I was like, way to next level the fresh start effect. He truly chose a once in a lifetime experience to anchor his commitment on.
Dr. Katy Milkman
It was aligned on a health focus.
Maya Shankar
Yes, of course. Of course, Obama one ups all of us and does the thing in the best way imaginable. Duh! But I do love that there's no other future one of those where he can be like, oh, maybe I can cave a little now because there'll be this other...
Dr. Katy Milkman
Right, the other time I pass Universal Healthcare.
Maya Shankar
Yeah, the other time I pass healthcare as president.
Dr. Katy Milkman
I love that anecdote. I don't think I knew that actually. That's amazing. Have you used the fresh start effect, Maya? In hindsight, have you ever noticed that a fresh start shifted something for you?
Maya Shankar
Absolutely. I swear to God, every Sunday I'm committing to eating healthily. It's just that there's too many damn sundaes. I always feel like I've got the next one to give it a go. I mean, I think it's hard for so many of us to keep our resolutions. In reading your book, it did make me think, okay, choose really remarkable milestones for pivoting like big moves, like when I moved from DC to California, getting married, big events like that, because I do think you feel like your identity is changing a bit. Any behaviors that accompany identity shifts might be more sticky, or at least they have been in my experience.
Dr. Katy Milkman
I think that's right. You get the benefit not only of the psychological break and the fresh start in opening a new chapter, but you also have physical change, which is so important to disrupting bad habits or routines and giving you that real blank slate to build upon and say, "Oh, I'm not going to go to the burrito shop every day for lunch," or whatever your bad habit is that you want to kick.
Maya Shankar
Exactly. I think one of my favorite insights from the book, and it's insight I've been using in my own life since I read your research years ago, is around temptation bundling. Do you mind first sharing what that is, and then I'd love to let you know how I've been using it to be a better person?
Dr. Katy Milkman
Yes, I'm so excited. I want to hear about your temptation bundling. This is going to be fun. Temptation bundling is a solution I came up with because I had two problems. Taking you back to grad school again, I was taking all these hard engineering classes and I was stressed out. I'd come home after a long day of classes and all I wanted to do was just indulge in entertainment, turn on Netflix and binge-watch TV, read tempting novels. I wanted to dive into that and escape my reality. I didn't want to do my problem sets. On the flip side, I also knew I should really be getting exercise. I was an athlete in college.
But again, when I came home from a long day, I didn't want to put on sweats and go to the gym. I had these two problems. I couldn't get myself to do my homework because I was procrastinating, indulging in all this entertainment, and I couldn't get myself to exercise. All of a sudden I realized, wait a minute, what if I solved them all at once? What if I only let myself enjoy this entertainment that I love so much while I'm exercising? I'd start craving trips to the gym to find out what happens next in my latest page turner. I would stop wasting time at home on this literary garbage that normally captures my attention and I'd just focus on my problem sets.
I started doing it and it was just like magic. I worked out every day. Time flew while I was at the gym because I was engrossed in Harry Potter or Alex Cross. When I got home I was ready to work because I'd already had my indulgence and I wasn't as stressed out. I also realized I could use them not only to help me exercise, but in lots of places. If you just tie something tempting to a chore, you can magically turn it into something you look forward to and do less of that indulgent thing and feel less guilty about it, like if only you get a glass of wine while you're making a home cooked meal or listen to your favorite podcast while you're doing chores.
Maya Shankar
For all you listeners who are doing laundry right now, Katy and I are cheering you on. Go for it.
Dr. Katy Milkman
Yes. You're temptation bundling, you didn't know there was a name for it.
Maya Shankar
Yes, exactly. One of my favorite things in life is discovering a new pop song that I love. What makes me really sad is that very quickly it loses the spark after a certain number of listens. You just know you only have 15 amazing listens with a song before it becomes old hat, right? As soon as I discover an amazing song, I will only allow myself to listen to it while I'm working out from that point on. I'm a really non-fun wife because my husband sometimes and I will discover the song together and we'll be cooking in the evening. We'll be having fun.
He's like, "Hey, let's play that new album by Kacey Musgraves," who's one of my favorite artists. I'm like, "No, no, no, no, no. You don't understand. That's only a treadmill/elliptical song," because I just feel like I have to protect it and save it. But it certainly makes the workout a lot more tolerable and a little bit more exciting.
Dr. Katy Milkman
That's great. I love pop music too, and I feel like we should trade some song recommendations later so we can each share more endorphins.
Maya Shankar
Please do, because it's now very seriously tied to my exercise routine. In fact, the one thing that can happen is when you temptation bundle, sometimes what can happen is the intrinsic/extrinsic motivation balance gets thrown off kilter a bit. It's like, initially I'm just using all of my internal will to go exercise, but now I've got this extrinsic motivator, which is a song. On the rare occasion where my headphones are out of battery or my phone's WiFi is not working, I'm like, ooh, I don't know if I can do this anymore.
Dr. Katy Milkman
You just have to make sure your headphones are always working and your iPhone is always charged or whatever you use.
Maya Shankar
Yes. I'm wondering whether for temptation bundling you see this played on the wild in places where behavior change feels a little bit more serious.
Dr. Katy Milkman
That's interesting. I'm trying to think if I have a great answer for you. There's a study I love of teachers who are trying to figure out how to motivate their students to do more math problems, which kids apparently say they like doing math about as much as they like eating broccoli. That tells you something about how delightful it is. Math is so important to everything, as we both know. These two researchers suggested basically a temptation bundle. What if the kids could listen to music, have snacks, markers that they like using, and they did that all on the day when they're doing their math worksheets, but not at other times.
The teachers were skeptical. They were like, "I think they'll focus less because they'll be distracted." It turned out that kids persisted longer on math when they were randomly assigned to groups that had these I'll say temptations linked with them. It's not changing their lives in that day. It is cumulative. But I think that's an example of some of the big goals we have in life, whether it's getting through your math assignments or finishing a dissertation. If you can find a way to make it more enjoyable, that really matters.
Maya Shankar
I love the math example, I think for two reasons. I mean, the first is I just love anytime research findings violate our expectations. When the teachers are like, "Ooh, I'm not really sure that this is a good idea," but then you're able to generate empirical data that runs counter to that hypothesis, that's wonderful because it's moving the field forward. I think the other reason I love it is that success begets success.
Passion begets passion. It's one of those things where if you get a kid just through that initial period, they're just learning the basics, getting over those initial super hard humps, then they might actually realize that they really like this thing, and it just becomes easier and easier and easier to do every problem from that point forward. I do feel like it can have massive long-term effects.
Dr. Katy Milkman
I'm with you. If they have positive associations with math, I mean, what more could we hope for?
Maya Shankar
We'll be right back with A Slight Change of Plans. In this episode, Dr. Katy Milkman and I are talking about the science of change and the different techniques we can use to spur on that change. One technique is called a commitment device, which locks you into a plan to reach your long-term goals. The key feature of a commitment device is that if you don't follow through with your plan, there's some sort of penalty in place.
Dr. Katy Milkman
I'm curious if you actually remember the experience of first learning about them. Because for me, it was mind-blowing how powerful they were and actually mind-blowing how few people use them given how powerful they are. But the study that I love that really I think illustrates nicely how much they can help us is a study where they partnered with a bank in the Philippines that saw low savings rates and wanted to figure out if there was a way to help people save more so they'd have the ability to have better health, have better life outcomes, where they came up with this idea that one of the reasons people were having trouble accumulating savings balances is that they were constantly tempted to dip in.
They were like, they opened the bank account and then they put some money aside, but then somebody's birthday or there's a holiday, and so the money came right back out. It never accumulated. People said, "Actually I'd kind of like it if I couldn't get that money out. I kind of wish I couldn't act on those impulses." They developed this new kind of account. It was a commitment savings account. You put money in and you are not allowed to take it out until a predetermined date you choose or a savings goal you choose.
They offered this kind of account to a random subset of customers, alongside the usual account with the same interest rate, but free in and out access. They saved 80% more year over year than the control.
Maya Shankar
Wow, that's extraordinary.
Dr. Katy Milkman
I mean, 80% more savings, right? You've studied savings. That's life changing. I love that story. That's a hard commitment. Because when you put your money in, there's a third party, the bank, that is saying, "You cannot have it. It is not accessible to you. I'm preventing you from it." There's a hard restriction on access to something. A commitment device is something you voluntarily opt into that restricts you or penalizes you in some way if you don't achieve your goals or pursue your goals in the way you intend to. That's a hard one because there's no fudging it.
There's soft commitments in the world too. You tell your partner or your mom, you're going to something and ask them to give you a hard time if you don't. That's a weak commitment device. You're going to get ribbed a little bit. You're accountable to someone, but you can back out.
Maya Shankar
I also remember learning about commitment devices for the first time. Gosh, we sound like such nerds.
Dr. Katy Milkman
We are such nerds.
Maya Shankar
Katy, do you remember where you were? Do you remember the day you learned about commitment devices? I remember exactly where I was.
Dr. Katy Milkman
I mean, I'm like, yeah, I was in a class where my head exploded. Where were you?
Maya Shankar
That is hilarious.
Dr. Katy Milkman
We are such nerds. I know.
Maya Shankar
I was in my kitchen with my roommates, and I was reading this paper. I was like, oh, this is so exciting. The researchers ran a study in which they had people outline where, when, and how they were planning to get vaccinated.
Dr. Katy Milkman
That was my study.
Maya Shankar
Oh my gosh, this is so fun. The flu shot study I'm talking about is your study. See, that's awesome. Well, the seminal work by Dr. Milkman. In your study you asked people where, when, and how you're going to go get vaccinated. I think what was so stunning to me is you write down this form. I, Maya, at 9:00 AM after I drop off my husband at work and I go pick up my groceries, I'm going to go to the CVS and get my flu vaccine. What was astonishing to me is that it significantly increased the vaccination rate despite the fact that you weren't accountable to anyone. In this intervention, you were not required to send the letter back to anyone.
No one was on your case. You were literally just planning it out for yourself. And that was enough to significantly drive the numbers up, which to me, again, was such an extraordinary light lift, low-cost intervention that could potentially save people's lives. In your book, you talk about the fact that we all have a fairly, maybe not everyone, but many people have a very high view of themselves. They feel like they might not benefit that much from commitment devices. We can be very over-optimistic about our ability to use willpower to avoid temptation. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts or advice for helping people overcome this overconfidence so that they can achieve their goals?
Dr. Katy Milkman
Yeah, it's funny, optimism is a really good thing. But in this particular case, it plays tricks on us that are problematic because we don't in general persevere as much as we think we will. We do tend to be present biased. We dramatically overweigh whatever value we'll get from something instantaneously rather than the long-term value. I can buy a present right now for myself, or I can put money in savings. I'll take the present even if that's not really good for me in the long run. If we don't appreciate that this disconnect keeps happening and we think we'll just barrel through and do what's in our long-term best interest, we don't choose to use commitment devices because we don't recognize this challenge.
I think it's a really tough nut to crack. For me, the big thing was seeing the data and seeing here's the evidence. If you see it with your own eyes and you see how powerful these tools are and how often we do stumble, even though we think we'll be able to push through, maybe that evidence will be enough to get people to recognize this can be a really potent approach.
Maya Shankar
You have lots of colorful anecdotes sprinkled throughout of real people who are facing these challenges and using these behavioral tricks of the trade. I do feel like in many ways you're wielding the power of social norms by saying, "Hey, at least here's a collection of people who are willing to acknowledge that they may be a bit overconfident about their ability to use, for example, willpower to achieve their goals and they're open to using some of these strategies." Maybe there could be a positive norm effect that comes from people reading your book.
Dr. Katy Milkman
Fingers crossed. I like the modeling. Any time I can use insights about social norms to make the world a better place, it's a win.
Maya Shankar
What do you see in the future of change research in your ideal future?
Dr. Katy Milkman
When I think about what I'm most intrigued by and feel like we've only scratched the surface of in studying change, there's two big things. One is durability. What are the kinds of tools that really propel change in an incredibly durable way? I think a key takeaway for me has been never stop doing the thing that's working. Don't assume you can temptation bundle for a month, then you've built an exercise habit, and magically, Maya, you will never need to listen to a pop song again and you'll always want to go to the gym. You got to keep doing that. We know that. But are there any magical things where if you can put them on autopilot or do them for a little while and they propel you for it? I wonder.
I would love to uncover some if they exist. And then the other thing I'm really intrigued by is setbacks and how to prepare for them and recover from them as effectively as possible. I think some of the most interesting ideas I have encountered around change work because they help us with those setbacks, I think fresh start help us with the setbacks, they're like, okay, wipe the slate clean. I get to get up and go again.
There's wonderful work by my colleague Marissa Sharif on emergency reserves, where she's figured out these clever ways that you set a tough goal, but give yourself a couple get out of jail free cards if you can't achieve it every day of the week and found that that's way better than giving yourself a slightly easier goal, because you're going for the stretch, but you're giving yourself a little leeway. I think that also is about getting back up. I think there's some really fundamental things to be explored around creating structures for success after a setback, and I look forward to studying that too.
Maya Shankar
Katy, one of the things that I feel most intimidated by is this challenge of how it is we can change people's minds. It feels like one of those really elusive things and there's no one size fits all approach. I'm just wondering if you have any thoughts on the most effective strategies you've seen either in research or just in your personal life around how to change people's minds?
Dr. Katy Milkman
Yeah, it's such an interesting question. It's obviously really hard. Just like behavior change is hard, changing opinions is really hard. I think actually there's some common themes though, and one common theme is exploration. When we talked about the fresh start effect and how these disruptions in our lives can lead us to be in a new environment and you can therefore explore and you don't have old habits necessarily already built to fall back on, there's also an opportunity to do that in terms of mindset shift.
I think when we have a set of beliefs and expectations, we're less likely to explore and read and talk to people outside of our perspective. But if there's a moment that creates or forces some experimentation, an exploration, that can be incredibly powerful.
Maya Shankar
Yeah, I like that too, because it's not so pointed, right? It's not like, I need you to change your opinion about this thing. It's let me just try to get you to expose yourself to stuff, period. I'm wondering if you have any concrete ideas on how we can motivate people to engage in that exploration, because exploration is very uncomfortable. We all have deeply entrenched views within us. Purposefully going on a mission to challenge those views is not exactly the most fun adventure. It's filled with cognitive dissonance. It just feels uncomfortable. How do we incentivize people to go on those little missions?
Dr. Katy Milkman
I have to think that a big part of it is probably through social norms, which is such a powerful tool. For instance, if you end up with a roommate who's a good student, your grades are likely to be a bit higher. If we point out others like you who have changed their mind, it gives you license to say, "Oh, maybe it's reasonable for someone like me to keep exploring and keep thinking about different ideas." I think that might be a way that we can introduce this exploration concept and not have it be too threatening and have it be appealing.
Maya Shankar
I think that's exactly right. I mean, it's reminding me, there's this one interview I did with a woman named Megan Phelps-Roper, and she ends up leaving this hate group cult church. I was asking her, are you using your platform today to convince other people, because there's so much research showing the power of a convert. When you hold the views that this person in front of you previously held, and then you watch them walk you through their journey of changing their minds, it can open your mind in a really unique way because you feel attached to their former value system.
You know that you started in the same place that, but they ended up in a different place. I know the Department of Homeland Security uses this insight all the time by recruiting former extremists to try to convert potential extremists away from that craft.
Dr. Katy Milkman
It's so interesting too because I'm thinking about the original 1955 Solomon Asch experiments where he'd bring all these people into a room and he'd show them two cards. One had one line on it and one had three, and you had to figure out which of those three lines was the same length as the one line. It seems like this really simple task, and it was fairly straightforward, people didn't get it wrong, except when he introduced social pressure. He'd bring a group in and have seven of them consistently give the same wrong answer before you give your answer. People started messing up and they were totally confused.
But what was really interesting, that's the famous finding, when everybody else says the wrong answer, you go along with it a lot, and you actually believe that you must be seeing things. One of my favorite sub findings that I think gets less play is that if there's just one truthful person in that set, so six people out of the seven say the wrong answer, but one says the right answer, you're much more likely to follow your intuition and say what you really think is right. Anyway, I think that that's interesting in relation to this power of the one person who broke free.
Just seeing one person who agrees with you or shows you a slightly different worldview can make it possible for you to feel comfortable going against the grain.
Maya Shankar
Yeah, I love that. Really want to get your thoughts on this. We are living in a world right now where we're almost in the self-help moment where everybody's trying to optimize their lives. I do wonder where the limits are of that. At one point you have to say, "You know what? I just can't spend my whole life trying to optimize. I just need to kind of be and live and exist." The reason I ask that is that it's alarming to me. I'll hear certain people say, "Oh yeah, no, it's super important to be bored because actually boredom makes you more productive."
It's like even boredom is now an instrumental thing for becoming more productive. Like, oh yeah, make sure you stare out the window for at least five minutes a day because that'll help you be more productive. I feel like sometimes we don't just do things because we just value those things. We always do things because they have some instrumental value in terms of achieving something else.
Dr. Katy Milkman
And that's also super interesting, Maya, because those are little hacks, like oh, stare out the window for five minutes. If we fill our life with all those little hacks, we actually don't make space for the big momentous change.
Maya Shankar
That's so interesting. You're saying that because it's like, oh, it's just taking up all your brain airwaves that you're not... You just don't have to the time to think macro. It's a great point. I think I'll wrap by asking what the biggest change you feel you've experienced in your life is.
Dr. Katy Milkman
Oh my gosh, there are so many, which is part of what makes life so fun. I think honestly, one of the biggest, most important changes for me went from being focused on figuring out how to do my own work or live my own life to taking on the role of coaching and helping other people. All of those relationships reinforce the same change, which is how meaningful it is to be looking out for someone else besides yourself and how much you can learn about everything when you are coaching and helping someone else. And that helped me actually be better at everything. I would say that's the biggest shift I've had in my life, and I hope everyone will get that opportunity to have that kind of a shift.
Maya Shankar
Wow, what a positive change, what a positive beat to end on. I know how busy you are and I know how much you optimize your life in order to make room for these kinds of conversations. Thank you so much. It was really fun to chat with you.
Dr. Katy Milkman
This was so fun. Oh my gosh!
Maya Shankar
Hey, thanks for listening. See you next week when I talk with rock climber Tommy Caldwell. He says, a near death experience where he was taken hostage propelled him to become one of the best rock climbers in the world.
Tommy Caldwell
I definitely always felt like adversity is what brings us to life, but this turned up the volume on that in a pretty incredible way. In some ways, my climbing ever since then has been an effort to almost get back there in a way and learn more.
Maya Shankar
A Slight Change of Plans is created and executive produced by me, Maya Shankar. Big thanks to everyone at Pushkin Industries, including our producer, Mo LaBorde, associate producers, David Zha and Julia Goodman, executive producers Mia Lobel and Justine Lang, senior editor Jen Guerra, and sound design in mix engineers Ben Tolliday and Jason Gambrell. Thanks also to Luis Guerra who wrote our theme song and Ginger Smith who helped arrange the vocals. Incidental music from Epidemic Sound.
And of course, a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at @drmayashankar. Anytime they violate our... Sorry, for a frog in my throat. Even though I'm a vegetarian, I occasionally get a frog.
Dr. Katy Milkman
You're not chewing it, so it's not a good swallow.
Maya Shankar
I'm not chewing it. Spitting it right back out.
The Host
