Harvard’s Behaviour Expert: The Psychology Of Why People Don't Like You!

**Steven Bartlett** (0:00)
People really care about what's making them disliked, and they really want to know how to be liked.

**Alison Wood Brooks** (0:04)
Okay, so first, this is an exercise that I do in my class at Harvard called 10 Questions To Fall In Like.

**Steven Bartlett** (0:10)
So if I ask some of those questions, they're gonna like me.

**Alison Wood Brooks** (0:11)
It's a great starting point, but let's talk about this, because there are gonna be little clues about how to be better liked, and it's the most teachable, practical, scientifically rigorous framework in the world for communication. Do you wanna hear about it, Steven?

**Steven Bartlett** (0:25)
Of course I wanna hear about it. I wanna be the most persuasive, influential, likable talker in the world, so I shall follow your lead.

**Alison Wood Brooks** (0:32)
Oh my gosh!

**Steven Bartlett** (0:33)
It's a lot of power.

**Alison Wood Brooks** (0:34)
I love it, I love it so much.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:36)
Harvard professor Alison Wood Brooks is a behavioral scientist who has spent two decades studying conversational science.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:42)
And she's revealing the communication mistakes we all make, the art of negotiation, and how to get anyone to like you.

**Alison Wood Brooks** (0:49)
We all get to adulthood and we feel like conversation should be easy, but as a scientist, when you look under the hood, you realize this is why we have so many awkward moments, why we say things that we shouldn't, why we are boring, why we get angry and hostile, and there's very clear strategies to help us with all of that. Like one of my biggest findings was how we reframe social anxiety as excitement, which makes you focus on opportunities rather than threats. And that paper ended up being featured in Inside Out, the movie. And then there's Small Talk.

**Steven Bartlett** (1:16)
I hate small talk.

**Alison Wood Brooks** (1:16)
I'm going to help you reframe that because it's really important, but the mistake that people make is that they say that way too long, and they need to move up this topic pyramid.

**Steven Bartlett** (1:24)
What about in a digital age, do we need to start communicating differently?

**Alison Wood Brooks** (1:27)
Yeah, there's clear things that we should do to make our text-based communication better and we'll go through all of them.

**Steven Bartlett** (1:33)
And you said you've done an interesting study recently about male friendship.

**Alison Wood Brooks** (1:36)
Yes, and it's quite troubling.

**Steven Bartlett** (1:39)
So how can I make more friends as a man?

**Alison Wood Brooks** (1:41)
Yeah, let's talk about that.

**Steven Bartlett** (1:46)
Just give me 30 seconds of your time. Two things I wanted to say. The first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning in to the show week after week. Means the world to all of us and this really is a dream that we absolutely never had and couldn't have imagined getting to this place. But secondly, it's a dream where we feel like we're only just getting started. And if you enjoy what we do here, please join the 24% of people that listen to this podcast regularly and follow us on this app. Here's a promise I'm going to make to you. I'm going to do everything in my power to make this show as good as I can now and into the future. We're going to deliver the guests that you want me to speak to and we're going to continue to keep doing all of the things you love about this show.
Professor Alison Wood Brooks, what is it that you do, and why do you think it matters so much to the world?

**Alison Wood Brooks** (2:42)
I am a professor at Harvard, and I'm a behavioral scientist. I study how people talk to each other and how they can do it better. I teach a course that I created there called Talk. I wrote a book about it, also called Talk, The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves.

**Steven Bartlett** (3:01)
And if someone's chosen to listen to this conversation now, they've just clicked on it and they're thinking, should I stay or should I go? What promise can we give them if they stay and listen to this conversation that is based on the work you've done in your book and all the research you've done? What is it that you think the average person can come away with that will have a meaningful impact on their day-to-day life?

**Alison Wood Brooks** (3:21)
All of life is about relationships and relationships are about talking. So if they can learn even one strategy that helps them in their conversations, it will massively improve their lives. If you think of everything from work to romantic relationships, friendships, productivity, all of it hinges on having excellent conversations.