Why Other People Have So Much Power Over You | John R. Miles - EP 807

**John R. Miles** (0:00)
Somewhere out there is a stranger you've never met, who will never meet you, who is quietly deciding what you're allowed to believe, not through an argument, not through evidence, just by being part of your group. Researchers measured this across 105 different groups in society, and the single biggest predictor of which prejudices someone was willing to admit to holding wasn't their politics, their upbringing, or the facts in front of them, it was one thing. What they believed the people around them already thought. The correlation was 0.95.
Almost perfect.
It's your friend John, and welcome to Passion Struck. I'm so glad you're here. Whether you're a longtime listener or someone who just discovered the show, thank you for pressing play today. Maybe you've built the life you were supposed to want, but you've quietly wondered why it still doesn't feel like enough.
If that's you, you're in the right place. Every week, I sit down with the world's top scientists, researchers, and thinkers to uncover what it actually takes to build an intentional life that matters. Thanks for joining me. Let's get into it.
Welcome back to Episode 807 of Passion Struck. We're in week two of our August series, The Adaptive Brain, studying how your mind learns, changes, and heals. Last week was about the brain you build on your own. This week is about something almost more fundamental, the brain you build with other people. I'm going to be straight with you about why I wanted to do this episode. A number of years ago, a colleague pulled me aside after a meeting and said something that should have felt like a compliment, except I didn't hear it that way. I heard it as a threat, and I spent months acting on a story my brain made up in about two seconds, based on nothing. I'll tell you the whole thing later in the episode, because I think almost every one of you has had your own version of it.
Here's what today is really about. A huge amount of what you believe, who you trust, and even how you see yourself isn't coming from evidence. It's coming from your brain's oldest, most stubborn survival instinct, the drive to belong.
I'm not just going to hand you the research today. By the end of this episode, you're going to walk away with one tool. I'm calling it the Mattering Check. A single question you can ask yourself in the moment, whenever you feel that pulled a shrink, defend or write someone off. I'll give it to you in full in a few minutes, and then we're going to use it together on every story in this episode. So keep a hand near your notes app. Here's what's ahead. A number so strong, it should scare you a little. What happens to your mind when anti-mattering sets in, it makes you feel completely invisible. I'll discuss my own story about the sentence that cost me three months of unnecessary friction, and we'll go into a study about a train, a stranger, and a conversation almost nobody wanted to start, but almost everybody was glad they had. By the end, I want you to walk away with something most people never examine, and one thing we'll actually do tonight. Let's get into it. Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your host and guide in your journey to creating an intentional life that matters. Now let that journey begin.
I want to start today with that number from today's teaser, because it's worth sitting with. Social psychologist Jay Van Babel, who I sat down with earlier this week, ran an experiment early in his career, going into high schools to talk to teenagers about bias. His assumption going in was simple. Correct someone's stereotype with facts, and they update their belief. Case closed. However, that is not what happened. When his team corrected a stereotype, the students didn't abandon it. They swapped it for a different stereotype about the same group and kept going. Correct that one, they just find another. The belief barely moved. What was actually driving it wasn't information, it was allegiance.
That observation led to the bigger study, the one behind that 0.95 number. Across 105 different social groups, researchers found that the strongest predictor of what prejudices a person was willing to express wasn't what they had learned, it was what they believed their own community already believed.
Here's why that should stop you for a second. It means a meaningful amount of what feels like your opinion isn't a conclusion you've reached, it's a membership card you're renewing over and over without ever checking the fine print. This brings us directly to the tool I promised you, the Mattering Check. Here is how it works. Whenever you notice yourself locking into a strong opinion, an ancient grudge or snap judgment about someone, you pause and ask one question, whose approval am I actually protecting right now? That is the Mattering Check. It shifts you out of defensive survival mode and forces you to examine whether you are acting on actual facts or just trying to protect your perceived status and belonging in a group. It doesn't ask you to abandon your values. It simply reveals whose voice is sitting in the room with you before you mistake it for your own. And here is the hopeful part buried in that same research. If belief is largely social, belief is also movable, not by dropping heavier facts, but by widening belonging. The single most effective way researchers found to help someone reject misinformation wasn't a fact check. It was letting them know that people in their own group found it misleading. Which means the Mattering Check works in both directions. It can catch you when your tribe is narrowing your world, and it can be the thing you offer someone else when you want to widen theirs.