The Laws of Connection, a Q&A with author David Robson
Science-backed secrets to relational thriving
I first interviewed David for a Psychologists Off the Clock podcast episode soon after his book The Expectation Effect came out. I immediately became a superfan1. David is just out today with his new book, The Laws of Connection: The Scientific Secrets of Building a Strong Social Network.
This book is an ode to relationship science accompanied by gripping stories (including David’s own, some of which he shares in our Q&A). The book leaves readers with thirteen principles of connection and an assortment of actionable ideas for relational thriving.
In our conversation, David and I discuss the power of a relational growth mindset, strategies for conversations, the importance of creating a shared reality and how to create it, and lots more (the conversation is edited for brevity and clarity). You’ll get a taste of the book here, but you can (and should!) order the whole thing using the link below. [Paid subscribers: head to the bottom of this newsletter to enter the giveaway for the book!].
Yael Schonbrun: The Laws of Connection was a somewhat personally motivated book?
David Robson: Yes, connection has been a major preoccupation of my life since I was a teenager. I was painfully shy! I wasn't defeatist about my shyness, though. I had a growth mindset and I really did grow. And when I began to look into the science of this properly about three or four years ago, it was amazing to see how much of this really recent research actually matched my personal experiences.
And one of the ideas that motivated this book was thinking, ‘what if I was to speak to the 18-year-old me who was going to university, what could I tell him?’ What book do I wish I could give him to kind of confront all of these challenges? The Laws of Connection is that book. But it's not just for shy people. It’s generally about maintaining relationships—something we can all improve on.
Yael Schonbrun: Growth mindset in relational life seems to be an important takeaway from your book. Practicing relationship skills helps us get more skilled. For instance, you describe research from social psychologist, Gillian Sandstrom, who discusses her own shyness in this Hidden Brain episode and how she uses subway rides as a growth opportunity for her social skills.
David Robson:. Work from psychologists Gillian Sandstrom and Nicholas Epley teaches that many fears that we have about the awkwardness of situations are unfounded. Sometimes people might reject you a little bit, but it's probably going to be in a pretty kind way. And a lot of people really appreciate the chance to have a small interaction.
Yael Schonbrun: When we have an experience of somebody being rejecting us, it's so painful, which makes it salient. What tools do you use to manage the anxieties that arise when an episode of rejection pops into your mind?
David Robson: I mean it's quite tough. That saying, get back on the horse after you've fallen off, is really important. And what Gillian's and others’ research shows us is that you have to overcome these biases with regular practice, like daily reminders that people are nicer than we think they're going be, and that rejection is unlikely.
Actually, a bit before I started writing this book, I had a pretty horrible experience of my own while appearing on a radio program with this comedian. He's since been canceled because of improper behavior. He was a real bully to me during the recording and it really knocked me. But then I started counting how many interviews I've done to promote my books. It's hundreds. And 99% of those people have been lovely. He was the one single person who was unkind in any way. And those are really good odds—amazing odds, actually. I did have to do that cognitive reappraisal and remind myself that if I let him stop me from doing more of these kind of interviews in the future, I'd miss out on so many good social interactions. And I don't want someone like that to have that power over me. And then I did the next few interviews and they all went brilliantly2.
People are so generous with their time and kind and interested and curious. In a difficult moment, we should take a step back, reappraise, and recognize that probabilities are still vastly in our favor.
Yael Schonbrun: It sounds like you did an odds reappraisal, but you also reconnected to your values of having meaningful connections with people and sharing your book content. And you recognized that if you let this one bad experience walk you away from those experiences, you’d be missing out on living in line with those values.
David Robson: That's exactly it. I think back from when I was a teenager and realized how important relationships are for me. I’m a shy extrovert in that I do need to be around people. And my shyness was preventing me from getting energy I needed.
Yael Schonbrun: When a book comes out for a shy writer3, the pressure to engage in a very public facing way can be really deeply uncomfortable. What are some of the strategies you'll be using to manage that?
David Robson: It's funny because with my first book, I dreaded talking on a stage and the sheer number of interactions. That's improved with practice, so I don't feel nearly so nervous now. But I do reconnect to my values and to the importance of communicating the messages of a book I feel strongly about.
I also connect to the privilege. Part of what gives my work meaning is to be able to stand on stage or share on podcasts or radio. And then there’s the fact that learning a new skill of presenting is inherently quite interesting. So, I see a bit of adventure. You might call that “reframing the challenge” and seeing it as a moment of growth.
Also, something I learned from one of Nicholas Epley’s early papers that something called “defocusing” is also really useful. He looked at all kinds of situations where people might make like a faux pas, like saying the wrong answer to a general knowledge quiz. The study showed that people just aren't paying that much attention. And there are many different qualities and factors shaping their impression of you; it's never just one piece of information. That means that any one particular mistake is not going be a game changer.
Yael Schonbrun: I was thinking that there’s a reverse way of looking at this. In other words, that some fears may be based in a realistic assessment, but that they may be quite useful. For instance, fears of social judgment may keep us motivated to take care of our relationships.
David Robson: Right, we do need reminders that we can't take people for granted. We need to be sensitive to the fact that people aren't just always going to love us no matter how we act because most have boundaries and limits and expectations of your interactions with them. That there is a likability gap is not an excuse to be an asshole or say ‘I'm so much more appealing than I expect so I can do whatever I like.’
But for most of us, we're overly anxious and pessimistic. So, what I'm asking is for people, including myself, to correct that and calibrate it a bit more realistically. You can recognize you might have offended someone, but they probably aren't going to hate you for what you've done. And there's something quite liberating about that. Even if you've offended someone, you can recover your reputation and you can heal a breech. This thinking reduces our fatalism. As we see in the psychology of apology, one of the big barriers to apologizing is the fact that we just don't believe the other person's ever going to forgive us so we don't even try to make amends for what we've done.
Yael Schonbrun: I recently read Ed Tronick and Claudia Gold’s The Power of Discord, which discusses the still-face experiment and how this research shows that what makes relationships ever-evolving is the opportunity to have the rupture, repair, repair, repeat cycle. Ruptures are needed for growth.
David Robson: Yeah, exactly. That's why I'm always a bit skeptical if people say that they've never had a cross word in their relationships. With my partner, if we never disagreed or spoke about times when we'd been hurt, I would wonder what's being hidden or if we are never exposing enough of ourselves. Friction can make us relationally stronger.
Yael Schonbrun: Ok, so one of the things people worry about doing badly is taking too much airtime in a conversation. What should we know about this?
David Robson: Previous thinking, say in Dale Carnegie's books, would've said just listen, don't talk. But self-disclosure is a way of creating a shared reality with someone. You have to give some of yourself to allow the other person to know what you have in common with them. Whereas if you are literally just listening, it's almost like you are this AI that's just like giving conversational prompts but they're not really getting much in return.
And we don't have to get fixated on the 50/50 split. There's research showing that you can go well over that. You could be speaking for like 60 or 70% of the conversation and you're not necessarily going to be judged badly as long as what you're saying is relevant to the other person, taking on board their thoughts and feelings. I tend to be the kind of person who is happier to listen than to speak. So, if I only speak for 30% of the conversation, I'm not going to be offended. But if someone hasn't asked me any questions or shown any interest, well, that's a deal breaker.
Ultimately, we can be remember to be flexible. Each relationship is going to be different.
Yael Schonbrun: Maybe the take home is that you want some kind of balance and to aim for that creation of a shared reality. And in order to share that reality, you have to contribute to it.
David Robson: Yeah, exactly. A couple of my friends are great storytellers and they're so hilarious that I don't mind listening to them for a long time. But I feel like I'm still creating a dialogue because I'm feeding them prompts and my enjoyment is part of the shared reality.
Yael Schonbrun: Relatedly, we often think, ‘don't interrupt, that's rude,’ but you offer a more nuanced take on interruptions.
David Robson: There are different kinds of interruptions. If you're saying something and another interrupts you and talks about something completely off topic and different, I mean, there's no way of like sugarcoating that. It's just rude. Don't do it. But sometimes when we interrupt, it's to help the person complete their thoughts. You might finish someone's sentence, which we know is a sign of creating a shared reality because it's a very tangible way of showing that you are both sharing this stream of consciousness. You’re synchronized and aligned in the way you are experiencing the world.
Yael Schonbrun: Another finding I loved because I'm a blusher (like you, David) is this finding about how nervousness or blushing can get interpreted.
David Robson: As a shy teenager, I blushed really badly. I still blush. But weirdly, my friends at university helped me to get over it by teasing me, saying “David's blushing. Look, he's going red.” And by making it a joke, I realized no one was judging me.
Yael Schonbrun: When I was in grad school, my training director would always come up to me and say, “Blush, blush, blush” to try to make me blush. I turned bright red every time!4
David Robson: Right. But surprisingly, blushes are often perceived as a kind of sign of honesty and a sign of social sensitivity. To observers of blushing, it seems that the blusher cares about what other people are perceiving. We want to be friends with people who care about what others think, not people who are super cool psychopaths. I find that very validating because we can view blushing as a sign of sincerity.
Yael Schonbrun: Yeah, it's authentic and a demonstration of how much you care. This brings me to this concept I’ve been reading about in writing from the humanist psychologist, Carl Rogers. Rogers defined something called congruence as “when the therapist is genuine without front or facade, openly being the feelings and attitude, which at the moment are flowing in him.” Rogers talked about congruence being a really critical part of therapy, even though in his therapeutic approach, the therapist doesn’t share much—they mostly just reflect. And much of the research you describe in your book gets at this same point. From the question of ‘should we tell white lies?’ to ‘how much should we disclose of ourselves?’ the important take-home seems to be that what we really want in relationships is an authentic connection.
David Robson: It is and it comes back to creating a shared reality, which I see as the underlying principle of all of the 13 laws. To create this shared reality, you need authenticity. Nothing is going to break a shared reality more than finding out the other person has been lying or has been inauthentic. That's why betrayals can be so damaging beyond the particular event at hand. It recasts everything else.
With self-disclosure, for example, we think mostly about revealing our vulnerabilities. But bragging, too, is a sign of authenticity. If something great has happened to you, it's natural to want to share it with other people. When you hide successes, that's taken as a sign of insincerity and it breaks the shared reality. Others start to question why this person would hide the fact that they've got a great promotion from me? Is it because they think I'm like fragile or that I'm not going to be happy for them? And it makes us question the foundations of what we're feeling.
White lies, like you mention, assume that we're protecting someone from bad news. But what you're really just doing is telling the person that they can't believe you when you say good stuff to them. So that part of the shared reality is now less stable.
What I want the message of the book to be is that these laws of connection aren't ways of manipulating other people. It's not a way of kind of getting more influence through some kind of Machiavellian strategy. I honestly think the best way to cultivate good relationships that are going to work in your favor in all areas of your life is just to be authentic, to be honest, to treat people the way that you would want them to treat you.
Drop mic, am I right? What are the tips you found most valuable, the science that was most intriguing, or the parts that resonated most with you about what David Robson shared?
1 I was such a fan of the first of David’s books that I read, The Expectation Effect, that if you talked to me in the six months after I read it, you for probably had it recommended to you. I then gobbled up another of his books, The Intelligence Trap, which became another favorite of mine. Basically, I’m a David Robson superfan. His ability to combine science and story in ways that offer guidance for living better is truly special.
2 David saying his interviews went “brilliantly“ has zero to do with arrogance and everything to do with being British. In fact, he’s way more humble than he should be!
3 This question about how socially awkward/shy writers should handle public forums is 100% me asking David for advice for myself. Gotta take advantage of the wisdom where I can!
4 I cut this from the transcript because it was distracting, but at this point in our back-and-forth about blushing, David and I both noticed that… we are both blushing.
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