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Scott Barry Kaufman is a cognitive scientist and humanistic psychologist exploring the mind, creativity, and the depths of human potential. He is founder and director of the Center for the Science of Human Potential and an Honorary Principal Fellow at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Wellbeing Science. Dr. Kaufman has taught at Columbia University, Yale, NYU, the University of Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. In 2015, he was named one of “50 groundbreaking scientists who are changing the way we see the world” by Business Insider.
Dr. Kaufman’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Scientific American, Psychology Today, and Harvard Business Review, and he is the author and editor of 9 books. In his latest book Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization, he presents a new hierarchy of human needs for the 21st century, one that allows for the fulfilment of individual potential as well as the actualization of transcendent purpose and peak experiences. Dr. Kaufman hosts the #1 psychology podcast in the world, The Psychology Podcast, which has received over 20 million downloads and was included in Business Insider’s list of “9 podcasts that will change how you think about human behavior.
I loved the broad spectrum Scott covered: hard and soft learnings, seen and unseen insights, timeless universalities of the human condition.Yasir Asif
Professor Hitendra, thank you for facilitating this great discussion with Scott! Looking forward to joining upcoming sessions.Anna Gaba
Each of your sessions remind me of pure love as the core of existence.Anuradha Khanna
In this episode of Intersections, Prof. Hitendra Wadhwa has a conversation with Scott Barry Kaufman on the topic “Self-Actualization in the 21st Century”.
What makes us, as human beings, flourish. What is our highest potential? What new understanding of human nature has science discovered since the days we were taught Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in school?
The episode “Self-Actualization in the 21st Century” offers key insights on:
Hello everyone. A warm welcome to all of you to Intersections yet again. This is a place where we seek to have a dissolution of all kinds of boundaries in order to allow us to explore the fullest possibilities in human potential in our own true nature. We dissolve east and west, inner and outer, purpose and profit, science and spirituality, and what have you. While in recent episodes we have had the opportunity to learn from or about some storied lives, people like Mother Teresa and Candace Lightner; a world changer in her own regard.
Today, I have the great privilege and opportunity to bring into our midst someone, while also making a very beautiful journey in his own life, has also dedicated his life to the study of human nature and to the exposition and the teaching of human nature. A scientist, a psychologist, Dr Scott Barry Kaufman.
Without further ado, let me welcome into our midst Dr Scott Kaufman.
Scott, thank you for joining us.
Thank you. It's a delight to be here and it's amazing to see so many people from all around the world. It's incredible.
Scott, I want to show people who you are in a couple of ways. With your permission, can I show them your website? To do a quick little tour of your world.
Of course. Yes.
You can show them my Google Scholar h-index factor.
That itself reveals just how much more advanced you are than most of us. What is a Google Scholar h-index?
That was a nerdy joke. In academics, they fight over who has the higher h-index. Things like how many publications and citations, and it takes a lot of things into calculation when calculating someone's tenure.
That is one of the things I'm going to want to talk about, which is just how prolific you are. Scott's new book is Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization. Most of our time together with Scott today is going to be spent on dissecting this book; his journey through this book, the core insights, and some puzzles and questions that come to my mind over my pleasurable journey through this book. I highly recommend it to all of us.
In addition, I want to highlight that if you go to Scott's website, which is easy to find on the Internet, it is scottbarrykaufman.com. You will see under the blog; just how prolific Scott is. I know this as well, because, Scott, I've been following some of your writings in Scientific American. These are, of course, just a handful of the most recent blogs. If you keep clicking next, notice that it says 45 pages of these blogs. Like I said, I know it because I've been following you on many of your writings in Scientific American. You are a tremendous resource for those who want to quickly and efficiently learn the latest landscape of what some scientific understanding is on a certain aspect of human nature. So, thank you for your great work that you are doing.
My first question to you is how do you get to be so prolific? I have even shown people the bibliography of your book, which is extensive beyond comparison. How do you keep on top of this exploding tree of psychological studies and research that happens out there?
Wow! What a question. Once I caught this psychology bug in college, there was no looking back for me. I became almost obsessed with understanding as much as I could about the nature of human intelligence. That's where I started off in the field. I wanted to understand about human intelligence and how we measure intelligence and IQ testing etc. I must have gone to the library and spent most of my days in the intelligence section of the library. I was so obsessed with these topics.
There's a voracious curiosity within me. I don't know how to explain that energy force that is within me, but it has been insatiable since I caught the psychology bug 20 years ago. I just do as much as I can to do public science communication of psychology. I wrote a Psychology Today blog where I wrote 50 articles. Then I went to Scientific American and have been writing there for the last 9 years. I might now go back to Psychology Today, to the blog called Beautiful Minds. I am just so driven to do that.
It also helps when you don't have a family. It also helps when you don't do anything else in your life, but psychology. I was watching the Michael Jordan documentary, The Last Dance. I'm not comparing myself to Michael Jordan, but when I was watching that documentary, it really was fascinating to me to watch him talk. People said, "Michael Jordan, why didn't you talk about social justice issues, politics, all these other things going on?" He said, "I'm a basketball player. That's all I want to do in life." I feel so similarly about psychology. It was just a deep passion for understanding human nature. I've made a lot of sacrifices in my life. I want to make that very clear. Whenever people ask me, "How are you so prolific, etc.," I've made a lot of sacrifices. I've chosen to live an unconventional life and put all my heart and soul and mind into understanding human nature, to the exclusion of almost everything else. That's my answer.
There itself you have given us the first really powerful insight about success, about flourishing in life from your own personal journey and your own personal choice, because it's something that I like to talk about in my class. The pursuit of purpose, which is purpose is as much about all the things that you have got to say no to, because there's only so much energy and time each of us has in one life. In order to really do full justice to whatever our core passion is, we've got to feel comfortable in saying no to a lot of things.
It sounds like you are very self-aware and self-disciplined on that front, and it's awesome. I would say inspirational to me as I see what you've done. Thank you for sharing that. Not just what you do, but also what you've chosen to not do.
Scott, let's talk about your book, Transcend. What I want to preview for us is that as we get to the later part of this conversation. What I will actually merge with is a very powerful point of confluence between the journey that I think you've been on in your career and in your life and the journey that I've been on. This is the part of the conversation that you and I haven't even had so far in our precious moments that we have spent together. But I rather even hold you in suspense if you are OK with it and build up to that.
Do you feel OK in having me share your visual framework from Transcend? You're taking a fresh new look at one of the very major pillars of the field of psychology, which is the work of Maslow and what used to be called the hierarchy of needs or the pyramid. You are reinterpreting it in a way that is fresh and more 21st century, but also, in a sense, going back to what he truly sought to think through and deliver it to the world.
I would like you to speak to it in your own words whenever you want. I do have that framework visually with me. But let me just invite you to start us up on the journey as to what motivated you to really bring Maslow to life in a fresh, new and in a different way.
When I was teaching at University of Pennsylvania a course called Introduction to Positive Psychology, I was looking at the history of the field and I discovered the writings of Abraham Maslow and humanistic psychology. I fell in love with the writings of humanistic psychology and their focus on the whole person. What does it mean to be a fully integrated, harmonious human being? I went down this rabbit hole of humanistic psychology and discovered that Abraham Maslow and his famous hierarchy of needs that a lot of people depict in terms of a pyramid was actually never drawn. He never drew a pyramid.
Towards the end of his life, he was really talking about the importance of transcendence, a higher motivation than self-actualization. I just felt a sense of purpose to set the record straight. I got so interested in the science of human potential that I decided to scientifically test some of his theories and some of the ideas of the other humanistic psychologists like Rollo May and Carl Rogers, Erich Fromm and Karen Horney to see which one still stood the test of empirical scrutiny in the modern era. It really inspired me to re-conceptualize the hierarchy of needs in a framework that fits exactly what he meant much better, which was that life is a constant tension between insecurity, deprivation and growth.
He argued that there's the D-realm of human existence, the deprivation realm, and the being realm of human existence or the growth realm. He says when we're in the deprivation realm of human existence, we constantly want to impart and control over the world. We'll go around and be like, feed me, love me, accept me, respect me.
But when you can enter the realm of human existence, it's like replacing a clouded lens with a clear lens. You no longer are trying to control others, but you admire things for the way that they are. Independent of you, you have a great sense of B-love as Maslow calls, love for the being of others. In this state of consciousness, in this state of motivation, you can momentarily reach moments of transcendence. These peak experiences, the most wondrous moments that make life worth living. They are very hard to access when you're in the deprivation mode. The D realm of human existence.
So, my new framework is a sailboat instead of a triangle, because I think a sailboat better encapsulates the connection that Maslow was talking about between security and growth. We need a secure boat in order to move anywhere. If we have a leak in our boat, we feel severely unsafe, lack of connection, lack of self-esteem, we won't go anywhere. But, if we can have a secure foundation of self and who we are and security, then we can explore. We can feel safe to open the sail and explore with universal love, purpose and direction.
Even though we're all moving in our own directions in our boat, we're all in the vast unknown of the sea together. At any moment, the choppy waves can come down on all the boats at the same time. So there are a lot of aspects in this metaphor that I think better encapsulates what it means to be a fully integrated human. We are a whole vehicle moving through the ocean. We need to be an integrated whole unit to operate at our best. Not a trek up a mountain like Maslow is often incorrectly depicted.
Wonderful! We're going to be exploring more about this framework shortly. But do you think that we structure our conversation around starting at the base level which is the security level and then making our way up in getting some insights and thoughts from you on some of the things I've gleaned from studying the book. How about that as a framework for our conversation today?
Sure. Any direction you want to go, I'm open, I'm very open to new experiences. So anything you want to throw at me?
Let's start with the very base of that framework around safety and security. One thing that struck me there is how we are living in a time today, regardless of where you may have come into this moment from, there are a lot of people feeling somewhat displaced. Physical safety, emotional safety, lifestyle safety, economic safety and security and what have you. Based on what you've studied, read and the ideas and thoughts you espouse in that chapter, what guidance would you have for those who are feeling a little bit shaken up with regard to their sense of security in today's time?
For sure, this moment has upended a lot of people's predictability. Our brain doesn't like that. It's all evolved. To be constantly trying to use current environmental information in order to predict the future and why there would be adaptive reasons for that in our evolutionary past for survival and reproduction. However, at this moment, there's so much uncertainty that our brain is pitched into a state of psychological entropy, which some psychologists are studying. So, it is naturally anxiety provoking.
I want to make clear that it need not be that way. We can start to become comfortable in a way we never have before with extreme uncertainty. We can start to realize that it is a part of life. Change is always a part of life. As much as we may have fooled ourselves into thinking there is a lot of certainty, this moment can teach us a valuable lesson about the reality of the world and seeing things as clearly as possible. A lot of people throughout their lives have traumatic events, things that cause a seismic earthquake as it has been put in the post-traumatic growth literature on our lives. Yet, they still grow from the experience. This is a major finding in the field of positive psychology called post-traumatic growth, showing that most people who face a trauma don't get post-traumatic stress disorder from it, but find new possibilities for their lives or shift their priorities or find a greater sense of creative inspiration.
That's a big one that I've been studying in my career, creativity and creative inspiration. Even a sense of motivation and a newfound view of your own capabilities and what's possible in others, and certainly you're not happy you had the trauma, but, what other choice do you have after it has happened already? Then why not grow?
You remind me of the guest that we had last week on the show, Candace Lightner, who lost a daughter in a drunk driving accident. Even with that painful, irreversible loss, she emerges from it with a hero's journey. In her case recognizing the passiveness there was in society at that time about something like drunk driving and founding an organization, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, that has just done so much reform in the world and made us all live safer lives. So it's beautiful to see you validate through the science and the studies, the possibilities of what Candace Lightner became. If I understand you correctly, there is an under tapped potential that is there in everyone who faces adversity. And naturally so, over time, many of those people experience that kind of growth.
Yeah. We have untapped reservoirs of resiliency because it's often usually not tested. When that muscle is tested, people are often surprised just how much they are able to adapt. Even with this Coronavirus, everyone keeps thinking about what's the new normal. In the first couple of weeks, even the first month, it was very catastrophic for a lot of people in their minds. Our ability to adapt is amazing. We are almost starting to forget what life was like before it. Now, it's like, yeah, of course, I'm going to have 50 Zoom meetings today. Isn't that normal? So, right now we're seeing just the incredible human capacity for adapting to whatever situation there is.
There is a whole field on that affective forecasting. For people who are paraplegic, if there are put on a questionnaire before being paraplegic; how would you feel if you were a paraplegic? They would put, "Oh, my life would be over. There'd be no reason to live, etc." And then they become paraplegic and then researchers will say, "Now, how bad is it?" And they would say, it's not so bad. Obviously, it's horrible objectively being paraplegic. But, subjectively, we adapt. It's amazing how much we adapt. It also happens in the other direction.
They'll have lottery winners do effective forecasting. How happy would you be if you won a billion dollars? I bet if I asked people right here, they'd be like 10/10. Well, it turns out that we even adapted to good things, too. So, people who win the lottery in the first couple of days brag to all your friends, get the requisite Lamborghini, buy mom a new house, and then think, "Wait, there's still more to life, though." And we adapt. I am a Zen Buddhist. This is the philosophy in which I live my life. So, a lot of my principles are obviously going to sound like that. I think the greatest thing you can do is just accept change as a natural part of life. That means change from the highs as well as change from the lows.
That's a lot of beautiful thoughts that you just shared. I use that teaching, I know they call it the hedonic treadmill in psychology, I like to call it just simply the happiness treadmill. I remember mostly focusing with my MBA students on the lottery part of the story just to help ground people that when you're soaring in the sky with your consulting job, investment banking job, etc., just be mindful of the treadmill. I think it is a very important observation that you shared, which is in today's time with the diminishment of hopes and expectations that have been caused by the pandemic, maybe it's helpful to look at the other side of that equation. The party who actually had something painful happen to them, like a paraplegic and recognize that there is life after that. There is life beyond that.
In fact, coincidentally, the very first person we had as a guest in Intersections is Joe Zhou from China, who ended up having to be a quadriplegic, after a really painful turn of events in his life. He shared that story of going from a point of being almost like suicidal in the first few days to a point where he saw this beautiful sailboat of yours.
That's exactly right. Here's the thing. We will always have challenges in our lives and challenges will often ignite us to want to overcome them and give us a newfound sense of purpose. Challenges can give us purpose. Whatever it is, we can become inspired and fiercely determined to overcome it. That then, becomes our reason for being. I think we underestimate the extent to which our greatest challenges actually offer us the greatest reason for being.
It's beautiful! I like to sometimes think that emotions have energy, pain has energy, disappointment has energy. If you see it as energy, then if you were to be able to redirect that energy, then that energy becomes a force. Does that make sense?
Oh, yes.
Beautiful! That leads us to the next part of your framework, which is connection. In in that part of your writing, you talk a little bit about Barbara Fredrickson and some of the work around micro connection and this notion of much deeper, calm and connected place that is so central to rewarding connections in life and it's not about the quantity of connections you have but it's something to do with more of the quality. Can you weigh a little bit more of that?
Yeah. I really like the research on high quality connections, suggesting what really matters is the quality of the connection, not the quantity of it. Plenty of people live with someone and still feel lonely. Some people live alone and don't feel lonely. Some people have 100 or 1,000 friends on social media and feel lonely. Some people have one or two friends and they feel satisfied. It really is a matter of the quality of the relationship. There are certain features that scientists have unearthed that underlie a high quality connection.
Reciprocity is a big one. You feel like you're in a relationship that has a sense of intimacy, disclosure and mutuality to it. I have distinguished, in my book, between the need for belonging and the need for intimacy. A lot of people are seeking intimacy and they think their need for belonging will satisfy it, and they realize it doesn't satisfy it. So, a lot of people may join cults or gangs or even violent extremism. I've been very interested in the psychology of violent extremism and you find a lot of people who get involved in these sorts of things. They are seeking transcendence. They are desperately seeking a belonging to be part of something larger than themselves, which is a fundamental human drive. But, there isn't a great mutuality there. The cult leader or the person in charge of the organization or group really only cares about you to the extent to which you're contributing to that organization and helping them. How much do they really care about you?
A real intimate, high quality connection is one where both parties admire each other on their own, not for what use that they can be to you. But there's a sense of B-love, a love for the being of others and high-quality connections. B-love permeates that whole relationship. Does that make sense?
Beautiful. I think at a time like this, when we are locked down in some ways, some people's lives are colliding with others, perhaps in their family or others having to cohabit right now in a way that is more intimate than they expected it to be. Perhaps, there is an opportunity to use some of what you're saying to more consciously act out that relationship rather than purely by instinct or habit, i.e., to think about what can I do to imbue this relationship with more meaning and more warmth and more fulfillment and really grow as my part of that equation. Does that make sense to you Scott?
Oh, yeah. For sure. I want to hear more of you talking and your perspective. You tutor a whole course in this. Your students have told me it has really inspired them. How are you coping during this pandemic?
Well, thank you for sharing that. As you were just talking, it was reminding me about this moment, a little while back when I was in New York, I realized, my daughter, who we're raising in India, my wife and her were here in India and I realized, oh, my heavens, this thing could go into lockdown and at some point, international travel could get disrupted, I better take a flight back. Even though I'm used to living away from them and they from me from time to time, I realized that in this moment, there might be a such an emotional overload that my daughter would have to go through, that it might be a defining hour for her and might be really important and valuable for me to be here. That's what it has been like over the last couple of months. She's a brave soul and she has gone through as much as anybody else in a courageous way, showing some of that resilience that you talked about, but also flashes of like, "What's going on in the world." But, I've realized that rather than just operate by instinct, it is important every now and then to step back and examine the dynamics and see where it's going right and where it's not. What can I do to be better in a position to bring out my best self.
Thank you for sharing that.
I'm a big fan of Eastern Indian philosophy. I'm a really big fan of yogis that modern day people have not heard of. I have this thing I want to bring back wisdom from; just because they're dead, it doesn't mean that we can't bring back some of their wisdom. I'm going to mention a name of someone that I would be shocked if anyone here has heard of. U.A. Asrani. Has anyone heard of him? It turns out that Abraham Maslow was so enamored with the writings of U.A. Asrani on the plateau experience, he co-opted that term in his own writings towards the end of his life and talked about why the plateau experience is even more important than the peak experience.
A lot of people here who are familiar with some Eastern notions of self-realization will realize that this will sound very familiar than the Western notion of self-actualization, as becoming great. Actually, in the Asrani conceptualization, the height of human existence is your ability to find the miraculous in the everyday. If you can cultivate that practice, you'll live a life of greater transcendence than anyone who is constantly fighting to get to the top of some nondescript mountain that they don't even know what's at the top or what the mountain really is. The most profound thing I learned in reading those writings and hearing Maslow's own description of it is, if you can just walk down the street and feel touched by a beautiful flower, you're doing well. You're doing good in life if you can do that. If you can't do that, all you need in order to appreciate life is winning or always the next drive, then, that's not going to be a life of transcendent experiences.
That's beautiful! A couple of thoughts coming to my mind is; Albert Einstein, he once said something like, there are two kinds of people in the world, those for whom nothing is a miracle and those for whom everything is a miracle.
I love that. For Einstein, I think everything was a miracle.
Well, I'm going to give you a reference back as a gift. Maybe you know of it. If you do, I'd be super impressed as well. Maybe you'll enjoy this.
Two things. First of all, I'm really happy to hear of your affinity and affiliation with Zen Buddhism. In fact, I know you're in the Los Angeles area, and of my very dear colleagues at Mentora Institute, Dan Burrier comes from the Zen tradition, over time, he became an ordained Zen monk. He actually runs a Zen Center in L.A. When you're a little bit out of lockdown mode, I would love for you guys to meet. I know he would enjoy it tremendously.
I would love that introduction.
You are an expert on creativity and he used to be the chief innovation officer of Ogilvy. So, I think there'll be a lot of cross fusion between you guys.
By the way, for those who are on Amazon looking for Asrani's books. It looks like the only one that's available, but you can buy it for $18 as Yoga Unveiled Volume 2. You can't get volume one. It's good to know it's still in stock. There is so much great wisdom within centuries, within generations. I pray that the wisdom of you and me, the next generation has heard of us, but it's quite possible they won't. It's fascinating. I love discovering gems from prior generations.
Beautiful! So then I'll start to do a pivot, recognizing the precious confines of the time we have. Much as I would love to have continued to take us all on a journey step by step through the different parts of your beautiful framework, let me exhort all of us who are engaged in tuning into the show to actually get Transcend and to read it for yourself and to draw out from it those pearls of wisdom and gems that most resonate with you. It is almost like an encyclopedia on human nature. It is a great reflection of the very prolific and curious mind that you have and how you have evolved and expanded your own frame into so many different beautiful facets and seeking to ascend not materially, but in almost a spiritual way seeking to ascend the top of that summit of understanding what human nature is.
I really encourage all of you to do that. We are not going to be able to do full justice to all beautiful gems in the conversation we are having. So what I like to do right now is move us right to the very peak, the transcendence.
Here is something I want to share with you. What I realized from reading this book after having had the joy of getting to know you and knowing you for the last several months that we've actually interacted Scott, is that in some ways, you and I are seeking the same goal, and we started almost in two opposite directions of that mountain that we were trying to climb.
If I understand your journey well, you started with a great passion, which you were sharing a little earlier and curiosity about the discipline of psychology and what it can do to reveal the secrets of human nature. In my case, when I was in my teens, I got really interested in transcendence. What happens beyond life? How can I touch every star in the universe? What is my connection with not just my blood family, but all of humanity and even insects and plants and everything else? The path that I took was not as much as Maslow, was in the mystics, which growing up in a country like India, one had a lot of access to studying the saints and truth seekers from different traditions around the world.
Gratefully so, my father had a very curious and invested mind in something similar. So I would just visit his bookshelf, starting when I was about 13 years old and beyond. I was drawn to wanting to major in psychology in college. But I did not, because the psychology I saw at least being taught in Indian colleges at that time was much more the darker states, as you call the dark core aspect of humanity. I was much more interested in the light aspect of it.
Of course, you and I are living in very privileged times today, where in the last 20 odd years, there has been an explosion of more psychological interest in qualities like intelligence, transcendence, happiness, joy, flourishing, etc. What happened with me is that I'm growing much more invested in and much more fond of science now that science is starting to validate and show an interest in those very things, which until recently, to your point, the only way I could access those was to go back to those people from the past.
But what is science adding to the picture?
I think that would be a great conversation for us to have. I'll give you my take. But, I love to hear your take.
I'd love to hear your take.
I would say three things. First, for some of us, it might be hard to separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of traditional wisdom, spiritual wisdom, etc. because over time, a lot of ossified, institutionalized, prescriptions that are probably a departure from truth in big ways that have been usurped by certain preachers. How do you separate that part out from the core truth? I think science can sometimes help do that and awaken you up to what's right and what's wrong from what you are inheriting from history.
The second thing I'm finding is that science is actually starting to really give practical tools. If you take the idea of gratitude, it's one thing just to say, OK, just be grateful and then you have these scientists who are coming up with very nice little exercises, practical things, take five minutes to write one thing that you are really grateful for today or something like. So I'm finding that these practical tools, including from some fields of therapy like acceptance and commitment therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy tools are actually incredible. In fact, I've had conversations with monks and nuns who find it really valuable to have access to some of that science based kind of toolkit.
Let me just stop there. What do you think?
Oh, I agree. I'm trying to think off the top of my head any surprises in psychology findings in terms of maybe contradict. Is there anything that contradicts ancient wisdom? like, "You know what, the Buddha was wrong with what he said there". That's not the truth or the reality of the world. I'm trying to think and I'm having trouble thinking of anything that is just like, "Wow, they got it totally wrong." Obviously, there is value in science or I'd be out of a job. But in terms of creating tools for healing, I think it is definitely a positive.
I think cognitive behavioral therapy has done a good job in unearthing the patterns of cognitive distortions. Maybe some of the ancients have noted that we have cognitive distortions, but to actually chart out what are the most prominent ones among humans and what are some well validated techniques that we can use to help people stabilize their mind. So, there's definitely value in it. But I am trying to think of anything that was totally contradicting something that some of the greats said in like 10,000 years ago. Can you think of anything?
Well, let me test out one with you. Although your book takes this exposition of the latest science to a new level relative to some of the other positions I've seen people take on that, which is around, how much potential does each of us have to reinvent ourselves to grow, to expand our personality, our character, etc. You refer to in your book some of the more empowering science today that is starting to reveal that a lot more is possible than we may have thought otherwise. If I read you correctly, Scott.
For sure.
But, one gripe I have had with science, perhaps until recently, if this has already been improved upon is, what they call the Big Five model. Can we talk about that for a second? Can you describe to our audience what the Big Five are? I can talk about what my reservations and concerns are about that. My expectation is going to get upended, if it's not already upended. But I had a couple of very heartfelt debates at times with a couple of psychologists who are very deeply steeped in the Big Five.
So, you want to get my thoughts on the Big Five, is it?
Introduce it to our audience and then also give me your thoughts.
Well, psychologists have discovered that in different cultures there are certain personality traits that we all vary in, different dimensions, from extroversion to conscientiousness, to neuroticism, to agreeableness, to openness to experiences. We're somewhere on each of these continuums. It's actually a hierarchy. But, above the Big Five, you actually have the big two. It seems like people tend to differ on whether or not they have stability or plasticity, or do they have the traits associated with emotional stability and conscientiousness and being able to reach your goals, and you also have the ability to adapt to change plasticity.
Then below the Big Five, you have 10 aspects. So, each of the Big Five has two aspects. Extroversion consists of assertiveness and engagement. Each one of them has two. Then underneath the two, you have even more. Then under that, you have even more. You can have an unlimited amount of personality traits. I say that to be clear, because a lot of people have misconceptions of the Big Five, as we're saying, there's only five personality traits. But actually, in modern day personality psychology, it's recognized that a personality is a hierarchy of traits. There is almost an infinite amount. Depends on what level of the hierarchy you want to look at. That's the nuance to the answer.
Wow! That's deep. That's much deeper than I thought we would go.
I'm a personality psychologist. A nerdy personality psychologist to answer it.
But Scott, to keep it simple for one point, I'm going to perhaps debate between us. If you take one of those attributes, which is the agreeable versus disagreeable. I tried to take the test and I find it very difficult to take in, because I feel it's garbage in, garbage out for me. The way the question is posed with binary options, I just find it hard because there are situations where I am happy to be extremely agreeable. There are also situations where I consider it to be a great risk to actually be in agreement with something that could be putting the community at harm or putting truth in a poor light, etc. So, I find it very hard to actually self-report a certain place for myself on that spectrum, because it is so situational.
Fair enough. There are different facets of agreeableness. You might score lower on politeness and higher on compassion or maybe the other way around. Only you know yourself the best. These things can come apart in a lot of ways. I'm higher on compassion than I am on politeness. I'll stand up for things I don't believe in. I do want to ultimately reduce the suffering of people. That's why it's important at what level of specificity do you look in that hierarchy? Was that helpful?
Yeah. We don't have enough time. This is going to be a debate that we will keep doing offline when we meet next. For example, even if we just take politeness, I've had situations where I've seen certain leaders generally have that as part of the demeanor, but also selectively and strategically raise their voice or assert themselves in a certain way in order to do a little wake up, shake up selectively where they feel it's a less harmful tune to do that in order to create a little bit of stir than to have done something like write people behind the person's back and seek to influence them in a certain way.
There's a contextual component to personality that you don't feel is greatly captured by the Big Five and I think that's important to point out for sure. We're just talking about propensities averaging over environments. But there are certain environments that bring out the best in us and certain environments that bring out the worst in us for sure.
Very good. Let's do this. Since we are arriving close to the end of our time together, you have to leave in a couple of minutes and then I will bring the whole community to a closure in five minutes or so. This is a question everybody hates when you have written a profound, rich, deep encyclopedic book. But I have got to pose it to you for the benefit of our audience here, Scott. If you had to distill it down to one thing that you would like our friends here today to carry back with them, what is the biggest learning that you have received from doing the research and the writing of Transcend?
No matter how dire the circumstances seem, don't forget to neglect your higher possibilities. They're still there.
That's beautiful! I told you I wanted to give you a gift back as a reference. So, Scott, have you heard of a gentleman called Evans-Wentz?
No.
OK. You talked about this correspondence between Asrani and Maslow. Now I show you another juxtaposition of mysticism and modern science. Carl Hume has written the foreword to this book. The book that I want to recommend, if you're drawn to it, is called The Tibetan Book of the Dead. It is translated by Evans-Wentz. Evans-Wentz also wrote the foreword to my spiritual master Yogananda, his book called Autobiography of a Yogi. So now you are starting to follow this connection between Yogananda and Evans-Wentz?
It is all connected.
Carl Jung in that foreword, which I'll never forget. I read it when I was a teenager. I was very curious about what happens in life after death and all of that? He says, "Western psychology has primarily focused on postnatal psychology. But what about prenatal psychology? What about preconception psychology?" Is there something like preconception psychology as well? That's what that whole book is about from a Buddhist lens, because it is a book about a deep philosophical understanding that the Buddha and his followers since have developed around what happens to the soul, what happens to the spirit, not during life, but in between two lives from the point that you die to the point that you are actually reincarnated on the planet.
It may not work for everyone. When you were talking about what is science not getting to disagree with Eastern thought, then, of course, the one arena where science hasn't yet entered and perhaps may never be able to with regard to physical evidence based way of doing science is the arena of perhaps if there are souls different from the body. What happens to it when the body ends its journey.
There's a famous joke, Steven got caught cheating on a metaphysics exam by looking into the soul of the person next to them.
But, I love what you're saying. Please email me that reference that you're saying.
I want to thank you so much for having me on. You could have chosen anyone in the world to talk to you this Thursday at this time. I want to really thank you. I don't take it for granted. There are a million other things they could have done in this time as well. I just really want to thank everyone. It means a lot.
Thank you for waking up and doing this. We should be the ones expressing our gratitude. You were always so gracious, Scott. I am very grateful. I know you have to go. So we should allow you to make haste and move on to your next commitment. All the best with further advancements in the work that you're doing and in the propagation of Transcend into the world. I look forward to our next conversation. Thank you for joining us today.
Me, too. Thank you.
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