Learn about the factors that determine how other people see you with special guest Vivian Zayas, Director of the Personality, Attachment, and Control Laboratory at Cornell University. Plus, learn about why it’s possible to ask for too much advice. In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following story from Curiosity.com about how you can, in fact, ask for too much advice: https://curiosity.im/2Houglb Additional resources from Cornell University: Cornell University’s “What Makes Us Human?” podcast series — https://as.cornell.edu/humanities Hear Vivian Zayas on the “Love Science” episode of the What Makes Us Human?” podcast — https://as.cornell.edu/news/love-science Personality, Attachment, and Control Laboratory at Cornell University — http://people.psych.cornell.edu/~pac_lab/ Vivian Zayas’ Cornell University research bio — https://research.cornell.edu/researchers/vivian-zayas If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Learn about the factors that determine how other people see you with special guest Vivian Zayas, Director of the Personality, Attachment, and Control Laboratory at Cornell University. Plus, learn about why it’s possible to ask for too much advice.
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following story from Curiosity.com about how you can, in fact, ask for too much advice: https://curiosity.im/2Houglb
Additional resources from Cornell University:
If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom
Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/what-determines-how-others-see-you-w-vivian-zayas-and-dont-ask-for-too-much-advice
CODY: Hi! We’re here from curiosity-dot-com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about the factors that determine how other people see us, with Vivian Zayas from Cornell University. You’ll also learn about why and how you should avoid asking for too much advice.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Vivian Zayas 3 - Researchers are changing the way they study people and their reactions to things (3:53) (Cody)
CODY: It’s not just how we look or how we act that determines how people see us. So what DOES determine what people think of us? Researchers might have some hunches based on some ongoing studies. And one of those researchers is Vivian Zayas, the Director of the Personality, Attachment, and Control Laboratory at Cornell University. She’s back for another edition of our “Mentality Mondays” mini-series, with some insights into how researchers study first impressions. But more than that, she has some surprising information about exactly how subjectively people really see each other. What she told us might surprise you.
[CLIP 1:42]
CODY: We’ll say that one more time just so it sinks in. In terms of first impressions, about 20 percent of the time, we tend to agree that some people are more likeable than other people. 40 percent is a “person effect,” as in, some people just like everybody and others don’t. And 40 percent is personal preference. That’s a lot of percents!
[CLIP 2:10]
CODY: Here’s one takeaway from this research: MAYBE don’t worry so much about whether you’re broadly likeable to other people all the time, and instead, just do your best to make a good first impression on the next person you meet. There’s probably not a person out there who EVERYONE likes — although, to be fair, Patrick Stewart comes pretty darn close. Anyway, that was Vivian Zayas, the director of the Personality, Attachment, and Control Laboratory at Cornell University. You can hear her and lots of other interesting people on Cornell University’s podcast series called “What Makes Us Human.” It’s now in its fourth season, and their episodes are really interesting — not to mention, even shorter than ours! You can find links to that podcast and more in today’s show notes, and you’ll hear from Professor Zayas again next week.
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Yes, You Can Ask for Too Much Advice — https://curiosity.im/2Houglb (Ashley)
ASHLEY: According to research, you can, in fact, ask for too much advice. Sure, you can help your career by asking your experienced co-workers for advice on the job. But you may want to think twice before you ask multiple colleagues about something in the same way you’d read a bunch of Yelp reviews before you buy something online.
Here’s why: when you ask someone for advice, you're creating a vulnerable interpersonal interaction, and you’re asking that person to spend time offering their thoughts. In return, your advisor might expect a level of control over the outcome. In other words, they might want to tell you what to do, even when you were just hoping to tap into the wisdom of the crowd, by talking to a lot of people, without ceding control to anyone.
When the advice giver and receiver have mismatched expectations like this, relationships can sour. So, asking for advice is actually a risky endeavor. Getting multiple perspectives is even more risky. For example, for one study, researchers surveyed 200 people who were asked to recall a time when they gave advice. The researchers found that participants felt flattered when they were asked for advice, but they also felt less close to the person receiving the advice afterward if their advice was ignored.
Similarly, when compared to people who were asked exclusively for advice, people who were just one of many asked for advice were more likely to feel offended and less likely to continue their professional relationship with the person seeking advice.
To the researchers, these two problems are clearly related. Asking multiple people for advice makes you less likely to take any one person's advice, which means your adviser has less control and a higher chance of being ignored.
So yes, crowds can be wise, but they can also be controlling, even downright domineering. If you value your relationship with your advisors, only ask for their advice when you really think you might take it.
CODY: Read about today’s stories and more on curiosity-dot-com!
ASHLEY: Join us again tomorrow for the award-winning Curiosity Daily and learn something new in just a few minutes. I’m [NAME] and I’m [NAME]. Stay curious!