The Hidden Reason Every Important Conversation Puts You on High Alert | Claude M. Steele

Key Takeaway

When facing someone from a different background—whether by age, race, gender, or position—our brains enter 'churn': a state where we're simultaneously managing the interaction and monitoring how we're being perceived. This mental multitasking activates the amygdala (fear center) and suppresses the prefrontal cortex (rational thinking), hampering our performance. The antidote? Trust-building. When you signal to others that you see their full humanity beyond stereotypes—what Stanford psychologist Claude Steele calls being 'wise'—you reduce their churn, enabling authentic connection and better collaboration.

Episode Overview

Stanford psychologist Claude M. Steele discusses 'churn'—the psychological and physiological tension we experience in diverse settings when worried about being seen through stereotypes. He explains how this fear activates our threat response, impairs cognitive function, and interferes with performance, then offers trust-building strategies to reduce churn and enable more productive interactions across differences.

Full Transcript

Transcript of The Hidden Reason Every Important Conversation Puts You on High Alert | Claude M. Steele from 10% Happier. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Hey everybody, it's Dan Harris. Welcome to the 10% Happier podcast. Today we're talking about social anxiety. Whether you consider yourself to be socially anxious or not, we all interact with people people people pretty much every day who are different from us. from us. from us. The difference could be gender, it could be age, it could be position on the power hierarchy at work, it could be race, it could be political persuasion, on and on. And so these differences, according to my guest today, create stress and even physical agitation.

The term that my guest uses is churn. Said guest is Claude M. Steele, a professor of psychology at Stanford University and the author of a new book, Churn. We're going to talk about how to deal with churn and much more after this quick break. We'll see you soon. soon. soon. A few things before we hear from our sponsors. I've got exciting news. If you love this show, but do not love listening to the advertisements, a subscription to my app, 10% with Dan Harris, now includes a private ad-free feed of the 10% Happier podcast available on whatever platform you choose, whether that's Apple podcasts, Spotify, or right inside the app itself.

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It's the tension we might have about, you know, what should we say? How should we say it? What should we do? How should we do it? it? it? A general concern about how our identity is going to affect our experience in the setting, whether we'll be accepted, whether we'll be valued, whether we'll be whether we better be on the lookout. Churn is that that's thought, I think it's experienced. The The word everyday word for it is just plain worry and trying to figure out how to cope with this with this situation and the ambiguity it presents.

That's what churn is. It's a It is a attention of that sort. The more important the situation, it's important to stress, the more intense the churn can be. can be. can be. If we're just sitting in a on a subway car, churn would be pretty light. There's no consequences for us. There are no stakes involved. But if we're in an employment situation or we're in a classroom or we're in a a traffic stop, the churn can be a pretty intense emotionally experience. And that's what the book refers to is is that emotional experience.

emotional experience. emotional experience. Somebody like me who I have all the privileges, privileges, privileges, straight white male born into an upper middle class family, on and on, all the advantages that one can have in this society. Does somebody like me experience less churn than somebody who's from a marginalized group? marginalized group? marginalized group? You can probably live comfortably and meet your needs without having to be in many situations that are diverse where you have to in order to get your needs met deal with people from different backgrounds and different identities.

So just given the organization of society, the the privilege that you described may may keep you from having to do that as much as as as other people might have to do. do. do. That is let's let's say an African American. In order to meet their one's needs, they have to transact with the mainstream society on a on a regular basis to buy clothes, get food, to go to school. Because of of that organizational organizational organizational uh uh uh uh they they may more often in their daily lives encounter the experience of churn.

churn. churn. What about in interactions with anybody who works for me, or if I'm at a party and I'm talking to somebody who's from a different generation, uh or if I'm interacting with a barista who's uh different race, like if it strikes me that that that talking across any of these forms of difference, it doesn't have to be race, it can be age, it can be Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. uh uh hierarchical, there's always the fear of it up, you know, like of saying the wrong thing.

thing. thing. Republicans, Democrats. Republicans, Democrats. Republicans, Democrats. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, I you absolutely, you could experience it in all those situations. You you won't experience it very much uh uh if the stakes are low. Uh in the case of the barista, for example, you know, doesn't make too much difference to your life how that interaction goes, as long as you get your coffee. your coffee. your coffee. Uh and but if it if the interaction is with co-workers in your uh uh you know, in your office, uh and then in your workplace, or if it's uh with um you know, um your doctor or your lawyer, uh or with the police officer who pulls you over, you over, you over, uh then then churn could get to be a much more intense.

I would imagine one of the big theaters for churn that everybody, no matter what your your your age, race, gender is, would be dealing with your boss. There's no doubt about that. For for most of us who have bosses, or or colleagues that have some authority over us, depending on how you put it, uh churn can be significant there, because uh you don't want to you know, you're worried. Is Is Is my identity, is my political orientation, is my gender, is my sexual orientation, is the is that going to be a factor in my relationship with this person who has the authority over me?

Uh and and you you you don't know for sure, you don't know that it will, it's not like you're jumping to conclusions, but the question is open. There's ambiguity there, and that's what Chern is trying to wrestle with. He's trying to get a sense of how can I feel in this situation? How much can I trust this situation? How comfortable can I be in this situation? I have a great example of a in the book I opened the book with a story about a parent-teacher conference.

It's Imagine a a parent-teacher conference, the student is a seventh-grader, and he's he's African-American, his parents are African-American, and the teacher is white. white. white. And this is as the as the parents get ready to go to the conference, the conference, the conference, this is important to them. It's not a passing thing. This is their son's son's son's uh uh uh uh important school experience, and and and and they know how their group can be stereotyped in society. They know how people might look at They don't know for sure that they will, but they know that they might see you know, not not see him as having the greatest strongest abilities, or maybe take a a small transgression on his part as something indicative of a of an underlying um you know, aggressiveness problem.

And this is such an important opportunity for them to talk to the teacher and thus the school. Uh make sure that they don't see their son but that these people are trying not to see their son through the lens of these stereotypes. So, so for for as they get in the car together to go to the meeting, they're talking, you know, let's don't jump to race right away. It may have nothing to do with that, but what kind of teacher is this? And do you do you think she Do you think she stereotypes would play a role for her?

Do you think that she's colorblind? Do you think she's comfortable with the realities of race in the United States or or what do you think? So, as they arrive at the meeting, they're they're in full churn. They're sitting on the edge of their seats. This is an important meeting and they're ready to sort of you know, deal with the ghosts of history, so to speak, in this situation to to make sure to ensure as best they can that their son is given the benefit of the doubt.

the doubt. the doubt. Uh the teacher on her part has probably an equally strong form of a churn going on as she prepares for the the meeting. She knows the stereotype of her identity, in this case, her racial identity, and she knows that that she tries really hard to serve the interest of her students and and to be sensitive to the needs of minority students. Um but how can she convey that directly to the to the parents? parents? parents? And so, she worries that even a slightly negative comment about the young man that may be intended to really foster his development could be could be mistaken as as racist given the stereotypes about her identity that are relevant in that situation.

That it raises that possibility. She doesn't know that she will be seen that way, but she knows she could be seen that way. And so, the ambiguity, the tension that she faces getting ready for this meeting is is is that. Oh my goodness. I I I I don't want to be seen that way. It would be so painful to have them see me that way. that way. that way. So, here's a she too is in churn, an intense form of of churn. This is the analysis of what it what can be uncomfortable about being in diverse in diverse in diverse settings is our vulnerability to being seen through the lens of negative stereotypes about one or another of our identities.

When we come together in a in a diverse way as in this teacher parent-teacher conference, that can happen. One thing I want to stress right at the outset, I'm going into the darkest part of the analysis here, but I want the listeners to know that that the analysis gets very hopeful in in just a bit cuz there is a remedy for churn. Uh and I I would like to feel that the remedy for churn is manageable for by all of us, available to all of us, much more so than we think, and has been an underappreciated underappreciated underappreciated uh pathway to uh low-churn interactions, to trusting in a situation.

Uh it's it's much something we haven't thought about as much, but it's something that I I think can be very powerful in in these kind of situations. I want to emphasize your point about how we are going to get to uh churn mitigation strategies uh forthwith, but let's stay on the um let's stay on the level of the problem for a while. When we're in churn, what is happening to us to us to us psychologically and physiologically? That's a very good question. What's what's happening to us psychologically is that we've got, you know, kind of another motor running in the background of our thinking and processing, a motor that that affects both our emotional reactions, the intensity of those reactions, blood pressure, skin conductance is what be how we psychologists would measure that kind of thing.

thing. thing. Uh and and and cognitively, at the level of thinking, it's like we're multitasking. We're doing two things. We're in addition to to doing the the the task in front of us, talking about in that example, the the performance and the the promise and so on of the of the young student, young student, young student, uh we're we're we're we're also monitoring how monitoring how monitoring how how we're seen and whether we are confirming stereotypes about our identity, and we're we're busy kind of worrying about that.

So, it's as if you have a worry tape going on in the back of your thinking that's absorbing some of your mental energies and focus and and can probably interfere right there in the immediate situation with how well you perform in it, how well you do, how natural you feel, how how comfortable and authentic you feel in the situation. the situation. the situation. I like to think about this on the level of the brain as well and and let me tell you the way I think about it and understand it and then please fact-check me.

I've been very interested in the research around what's called psychological safety. I know you're familiar with this, but just for the audience, psychological safety is essentially in an organization and it could be a professional organization or any group of humans, a family, a a sports team, a volunteer organization, how comfortable do the people on the lowest end of the hierarchy feel speaking up and speaking their minds and telling the truth. And there's there's been some research that shows that organizations that have the and even teams within organizations that have the highest level of psychological safety perform the best.

And I I I think about this through the way what we know about the brain and again, I'm I'm looking for you Claude to eventually fact-check me here if I'm if I run a foul of the facts, but what you want in an effective an effective an effective conversation and an an effective um interaction is for the rational, logical, creative part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, the newest part of the human brain to stay online and the amygdala, the fear center, the lizard brain, the oldest part of our brain to to stay offline because when we're scared, when we're stressed, it it the prefrontal cortex cannot fully flower and flourish.

And so I think a lot about the to the best of my ability about keeping people's prefrontal cortex online and not activating the amygdala. It obviously is going to happen and sometimes, you know, you just can't prevent it, but to the best of my ability that's what I'm thinking about. So, So, So, how does all of that land with you? Yeah, that is a perfect description of what can happen when a person is under this kind of in churn, under the kind of threat being seen through stereotypes, stereotype threat.

In fact, there's research which shows exactly that pattern of brain reaction for participants when they're under stereotype threat. Women performing very difficult math, they're very committed to being good at it, they are very good at it, but they're in a high-stakes situation and they're performing at the frontier of their skills compared to the men in exactly that same situation. Women, because of the stereotypes out there about their about their about their math abilities, their STEM abilities, abilities, abilities, they're they have a pattern just as you describe it.

There's a suppression of activity in the prefrontal cortex, the rational part of the brain they need to do well on the on the task in front of them, them, them, and there's a an increase in activation in the amygdala, which is sensitive to threat in the in in the situation. So, there there is precisely that pattern of of brain reaction when people are under this kind of identity threat and are in churn. Churn looks like that. Why does this happen? Why does interacting across lines of difference, why is it so fraught?

That's a That's a That's a a very central question in in our work. I think the dominant feeling is that these kind of thing these kind of tensions reflect prejudices and biases and and and the like. Again, while not diminishing the importance of those phenomenon, prejudices and biases, I'm pretty convinced at any rate that this is something different than that. I I think what's threatening about it is that I just don't want to be seen in terms of and treated in terms of those stereotypes in in situations that are important to me.

I just don't want that to happen. And I'm trying to cope with that as a threat in the situation that's that's important. It could be a classroom, a workplace, and so on. Could be be be a doctor's office, a traffic stop. I'm trying to cope with with the the possibility that I could be seen and treated that way. And how do I respond to it? So I I think that that's what initiates it, triggers it. And I think it's often misinterpreted that we don't know how to interpret it.

Does this reflect me me being prejudiced and biased or biased or biased or No, I'm I'm arguing it it reflects a a pretty rational inter reaction to reaction to reaction to a threat in the situation, a perceived threat in the situation and based on on my identity. I'm a bit older and you know, that's an identity and there are circumstances where I'm with younger people and they might have have have views about older people. Maybe they think of older people as not being as up-to-date on issues and and the like or maybe not being as tech-savvy as as other people and and when in situations where those things are important, the possibility of being seen that way and treated that way is threatening.

And I'm I'm in turn trying to cope with it. Well, how do I cope with this? How do I convince them I'm not this way? What what's the best way to for me to portray proceed in this situation? When I'm with just older people, I'm a lot less worried about that because we're all older and you know, and we're not going to I'm pretty confident we're not going to see each other in terms of these ageist stereotypes. So, so I can relax a little bit more, but when the situation becomes diverse, that's where the threat enters the picture and part of my brain races into churn while I'm trying to deal with the the the task at hand.

I really resonate with what you said about about about um um um going into churn around age. Um I'm a little bit younger than you. I don't know your exact age. I'm 54 and um I interact interact interact older than you. So, you should You should feel no threat. Okay. What I do feel threat because I work with and sometimes work out with a lot of um younger people and I is as soon as we get you know, um into a technical discussion or somebody's trying to show me how to do something on my phone or I need to share screen on Zoom and then I I I'm screwing it up and I then I'm in my mind's like, oh everybody's thinking I'm old.

I'm I'm I'm the unc who can't, you know, function in in this setting uh and then I I my I lose my ability to like hold it together. Yeah, to pay attention to what's what's right in front of you. Where where is if you were younger and that wasn't an issue, you know, you you you just you just automatically without a second thought, so to speak, without any churn, you just pay attention to what they're to Oh, you should you do it this way, huh? Oh, okay.

All right. But but when we we older people are the this triggers a worry in us that oh my goodness uh they're going to think the worst of me here uh based on those stereotypes I know that are out there about older people. Uh and it puts us in churn and that interferes with with our functioning in that in that uh situation. situation. situation. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. For some people, summer is their favorite season. Travel picks up, kids are out of school, and adventure is the focus.

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We've talked about the problem. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think we've got it given the problem a good airing. Uh so let's pivot to what do we do about it? Uh and I know you've written a whole book about that but like I'll start with a very broad question. Uh what do we do about it? about it? about it? There's an approach that we can all take in our lives as individuals and and even in in larger situations even in institutions corporations. institutions corporations. institutions corporations. Uh Uh Uh an approach we can take that reduces this churn and and and gives us a way of responding that's where the hopefulness comes in is that there is a pathway to coping with it that can reduce our stress our churn and that pathway is trust building.

That's the proposed answer in this line of thinking is that what that churn between the parents and the teacher for example is reflecting a kind of difficulty in trusting each other. Can I really trust that I won't be misread mistreated in this situation. That's something I don't think we've appreciated as much as we we should should is is that it is fundamentally an issue of of trust. It's one way of putting it putting it putting it as I tried to in the book is that it's conflict between remembering and forgetting.

Uh both the parents and the teacher have this mental conflict. Do I do I remember how my group can be seen in society and perhaps in this situation because that's relevant here or do I just forget that and trust that I won't be seen that way. I can just relax here in in in this situation. That's a kind of way of capturing the the kind of trust that I'm talking about. If I can decide if the teacher and the parents can decide, ah, I'm going to be safe here.

I know this person. I've seen her do this and this sort of a reservoir of trust that has been built up between these parties, then the conversation can go forward without all that churn and and it can the information can be and the thinking between them can be unobstructed. It can be quite calm and and can constructive as I say. That's the pathway to the to the hopefulness here is that there is an antidote to churn and that antidote is trust and the ability to build trust and that's what the book marches us through is look at this at the but just between individuals how how trust building can reduce churn.

reduce churn. reduce churn. How do we operationalize this beyond that very specific example? There are so many other situations in which we're giving feedback that are not teacher student and maybe not over a racial divide. It could be I'm giving a feedback to anybody on my team and they're going to be on the lookout for you know, am I safe in my job and and how can I deliver feedback in that situation or to my son who might feel like he's got a a localized stereotype of not working hard enough on his homework and I'm not seeing him clearly cuz I'm looking at him through that lens.

So how do we broaden what you call the wise feedback formula? A bit of a story about where the the term wise comes from. It's a it's a that was an ethnography done by a very famous sociologist Erving Goffman of of gay life in San Francisco in the 1950s when that identity was heavily stigmatized, not just stereotyped but deeply stigmatized. Uh gay men of that era had a term for straight people who they they they knew knew knew they could trust and they called them wise.

Oh man, he's wise. You don't have to worry about him. He sees our our full humanity despite the stigma that we have to deal with in this society at this time. Um so that's where I come up with the term wise. It is behaving in some way that that people understand that you see their full humanity even though they're different and even though there are stereotypes about that difference. Uh if if I can manage somehow to convey that. So that becomes kind of the operational question that that the book tries to to develop.

Well, how how do I how can I be wise with with people? Uh well, I think the focus should be on building trust and there I think we humans have some good intuitions and we probably do it in a maybe without being aware of it as such, we probably do it quite commonly in our lives. We we we know how to build that trust and I think that is a mode of functioning as a as a way of behaving in in our important settings. Uh that is a general strategy for for being wise that allays this identity threat, enables churn to go very low and to make our interactions with each other more constructive.

Many examples in my life where I've experienced friendship like that across identities divide where people really just got to know me and figured out what I needed and and tried to help me get it. I trust that person then. I trust them. I don't I don't worry that my identity is a problem in that situation. Some of the closest relationships I've ever had are are from friendships like that where where people, you know, help me cope with a real life situation. We were colleagues together or we were students together.

The book is full of examples of of of of that. Uh where you know, people in the same situation I'm in, it's you know, paid attention and and tried to get to know me and figure out what how to help me and and they they when they as that process unfolded, uh it it was very easy for me to trust them and feel real real unobstructed human affection for them. for them. for them. This episode is brought to you by IQBAR, our exclusive snack sponsor. IQBARs are better-for-you, clean, plant protein bars packed with fiber and brain-boosting nutrients with zero added sugar.

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counterpart is. counterpart is. Yeah, uh this is something I thought a great deal is a whole chapter in the book as as you know for focused on that that question. Trust in the face of power. I think I summarized it. summarized it. summarized it. I do think the person with the power has to go first with the I do think that's a reality that it's a a lot to expect somebody in in the least in the less powered s- situation to to to initiate trust. Hmm.

When when the powerful person hasn't done anything to help you help you help you forget forget forget and not worry about how your identity is going to affect thing. They haven't made any that it's a lot to expect the least powerful person to make the first step in that in that kind of situation. So I just think that's a reality that needs to be to be to be I need to be explicit about and and I I have been. have been. have been. But having said that I do think there is a form of power that arises from the least powerfully situated person offering trust.

I think that's one of the the most going to some detail always remembering it's a lot to ask but I I think it is a form of a power in its own right and and the the big examples I I can think of are are some of the the early civil rights movements where where the the marches on in Birmingham or in Selma for example where the least powerful people dressed up in their Sunday best and and took advantage and and simply lived behaved in a way you know, defeated the segregation that was normative in those situations.

They that is they violated the rules of segregation and just simply integrated. That That's That's at the core of what those demonstrations did. We're going to act like we are not like we are full human beings and we're going to present ourselves ourselves ourselves as if we trust that the system will treat us like full human beings. So, uh put on your your coat and tie and let's let's march into this uh uh uh uh diner and we're going to sit down at the restaurant at the diner and and order food like it So, here's a here's an example in these sit-ins is what I'm referring to here, where people just took their rights.

They asserted them uh as the least powerful people in the situation. Uh and, you know, they did suffer accordingly. I mean, people were throwing throwing throwing hot coffee on them and sugar and all kinds of things, but their assertion of of this transformed American society and really uh really uh really uh at least at least at least you know, led to the uh changes in the laws that had been in place that enabled this kind of segregation that had dominated our society to that point. These kinds of assertions of trusting the the the ultimately having faith in or trusting the ultimate fairness of this society led to changes that really did make this society a fairer society, a more just society.

society. society. I think there's no question but that you're correct that the the onus should be on the people with power and we there will we'll talk in a moment about some more strategies that any of us can implement uh in in those situations where we do have the the power to create trust. But, let me just stay with the idea of like what can we do when we're, you know, on the the least powerful end of the equation, when we're sitting down with our boss, when we're interacting with a professor who's um older and uh maybe of a different race or gender, etc., etc.

One strategy that is just coming to mind for me, but I want to check it with you, uh, comes from uh, a pair of communications coaches that I've worked with for a while and I really admire. Their names are Mudita Nisker and Dan Clurman. And they often recommend that when you're when you're when you're struggling in an interaction, you trust that you can report to your conversation partner what's happening for you. You know, I'm I'm struggling right now to speak coherently because I'm a little nervous.

I just want to tell you what's going on for me. And if you're if you're if you're seeing that I'm having trouble giving you a straight answer, that's why. This is a high-stakes interaction for me. So, can you give me a little grace? How does that land for you? That's pretty good. It It kind of, uh, disarms the threat in the situation. Uh, I I see you when you say that to me. I'm the powerful person. You're the least powerful person. Uh, I when you say that to me, I I feel, um, oh, okay.

He knows uh, what's going on here. He's He He's trusting me, making allowing himself to be vulnerable to to to me. And, um, I you know, there there are there are going to be, um, I want lack of a better term, mean-spirited people for whom that wouldn't mean very much. Not denying that that exists in the world, but I think most many people, um, that's where my faith lies is that there are many people who want these interactions to be effective and who want to want to want to uh, function well in diverse environments and enjoy the diversity that is as opposed to be threatening threatened by the diversity of our of our society.

I think they they would welcome that. That is a I think an effective way of of disarming this this the dynamic behind churn. As you've said, um, many times, uh, throughout this conversation that the the key antidote to churn is trust. Um, in the book you lay out a framework for building trust, um, and it has three aspects: seeing, welcoming, and supporting. Can you walk us through this? I tried as I was going along and then at the end to, you know, boil it down to some simple approaches and and those are the the ones that came to mind.

I, you know, another person might might do this differently, but I this captures sort of the the intuitions that I have and the research that I know of as the best way forward. Seeing is the first step and I think maybe the most important step. Um, I'll I'll give you an example of what I actually mean by it, a simple everyday example. Um, if I'm running a research lab in my with another colleague and that colleague is always late to that research meeting. I could get irritated.

And uh, uh, I'm I looking at them, I'm trying to understand why on earth are they late all the time? And uh, in answering that question, question, question, uh, things about them are going to dominate my thinking because they're in my in my mind's eye, so to speak, that person. Let's call him Fred. You know, and I could say things, well, Fred is is just disorganized or maybe Fred doesn't really care about this research and I'm answering the question, uh, uh, of what's wrong in terms of things about Fred because I I'm a an observer looking at this problem and I'm seeing and Fred is the problem.

So, I start to explain things naturally in terms of of things about Fred. Well, but if we ask Fred what he thinks, why why he thinks he's late all the time, I might get a very different set of of answers. He's not He's not seeing himself and things about himself. He's seeing the circumstances that he's dealing with in his life, the fact that maybe a class he's teaching doesn't get out to gets out just as much as the research meeting is is starting and he doesn't have time to get across campus to get to it or maybe he's having trouble getting reliable nannies to take care of his children and and so on.

He's going to see the or traffic jams. He's going to see the the particulars of his life as the cause of his lateness. So, the two perspectives, the observer's perspective and the actor's perspective, Fred being the actor, me being the observer, those difference in perspectives lead to very different answers of for the same thing, very different explanations for the same thing. And seeing, the first step I think in building trust, is to as best as possible try to take the actor's perspective. Try to see what the other person is contending with in that situation.

What is it like to be your student? What is it like to be your friend? What is it like to be your colleague or in that situation? What What is that person responding to? That helps us understand how to help them, what they need in order to help them. My roommate in that college example example example had a good sense of of what I was actually contending with. So, he he helped me deal with what I was contending with. I I I he knew how to cope with with college life and the academic side of it and he could see that I didn't and that's what I needed and so he gave me those things.

And in the process of that I I could you know, I I I trusted him implicitly. And my churn slowed down and my outcomes in that situation improved dramatically. So, what what I'm I stressing here I guess, I don't want to get get get too far away from this term seeing. Seeing is is trying to first really listen to what a person is telling you and what they about themselves and and as to what they need in a situation. That that is the first step I think in in being wise is is to see.

Uh it's so easy as observers to project what we think is the problem. Uh Uh Uh the answer to the problem. That that's I'm asking for an extra step of discipline step here. Try to see what the what the person you're trying to you're dealing with. What are they dealing? What's the situation they're actually contending? actually contending? actually contending? Uh Uh Uh so that's the first step is try to take that perspective, the actor's perspective, as best as possible and as much as possible. Then I think uh welcoming is the second step.

Um people need to know as they come into a diverse situation that they're welcome there and valued there. That's the question that their identity poses to them. Is that mhm Uh I know the stereotypes about my group and my identity. I know those stereotypes and that might mean I'm not so welcome here. So they need they really do need a signal that who they are is is really uh just fine there and very welcome in that situation. If I'm a lower class as I could talk about this research which shows kids who come from low-income homes coming into an elite university, for example, they could they can do I really belong here?

Are really do I really belong here? Are people going to really see me as somebody that that belongs here? So they need a signal that there are a lot of ways of being successful in this university and some of those ways your background would be helpful in you achieving. Uh and and uh as opposed to I'm not sure about you. Um maybe if you remediate your skills or something, maybe then you'd be welcome. Woof. Woof. Woof. That's a hard burden with to to assume uh as one takes on something like the the college experience or the experience in a new workplace.

Uh workplaces, schools, classrooms, schools, classrooms, schools, classrooms, it's it's very helpful to be like that wise feet gap back giver in that experiment that I described where uh you you're you you're you're given a signal that you know, look, I I believe you can do okay here. I believe you can succeed here. You're welcome here. There are multiple ways of of contributing here and I I think you can do that. That it's worth taking the time to do that. If you were ever in a completely homogeneous situation again, that might be extraneous.

It might not be so be so be so important, but but we do live in a diverse society and and we're committed to its being a fully at least our opportunities of fully integrated society and so that's where I think these this this extra thinking comes into play. I think it's an evolution of our society to understand seeing and welcoming. Uh and then the final one I think is maybe most powerful. I think I certainly can point to it. It's been powerful for me in many phases of my life.

Help the person. You tend to trust the people that you know, help you cope with the immediate situation you need help in. Um and you know, I don't it's does the fact that that person has a very different identity to me. Let's say I'm African-American. Let's say he's a an older older older uh white guy from the south. Uh Uh Uh those are all factors, but if that person seems to be uh interested in helping me cope effectively in this situation and is giving is taking the time to listen to me and to really give me the things I need to cope effectively there.

I don't care about that background. That's not something that people care as much about as as whether they can trust the person. And his help for me, listening to me, and welcoming me, and giving me uh concrete help concrete help concrete help in coping with the situation is more important. important. important. It's more important and and it overrides, I think, that. I I begin to forget when he behaves like that with me. I begin to forget that I could be seen stereotypically and so on. I relax.

The churn goes down uh to a low level and I I can function more effectively in a in a less obstructed way in that in that situation. situation. situation. I share your optimism and I appreciate uh uh uh I appreciate it and I appreciate your work and uh you taking the time to come chat with me and by extension my listeners. I do want to remind everybody Claude's book is called Churn, The Tension That Divides Us and How to Overcome It. Overcome It. Overcome It. Claude and Steel.

Pleasure to meet you. Thank you for Thank you again for coming on. Well, thank you. It's a great pleasure to me. I enjoy your podcast in general and hope and hope this one is useful to people. people. people. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much to everybody who worked so hard to make this show. 10% Happier is produced by Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vassili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer.

Marissa Shneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmere is our executive executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. Also, one last thing before I let you go here. Starting Sunday, July 12th at 4:00 p.m. Eastern, the Summer Sunday Live series premieres. Join legendary teacher Sharon Salzberg for an 8-week deep dive into the Buddha's cookbook for human happiness, the eightfold path. You'll experience live meditation and Q&A only on the 10% with Dan Harris app. Go to danharris.com to start your free trial today.