Latest news with #EmilyFalk
Fast Company
19-05-2025
- Health
- Fast Company
5 facts about the brain to improve your decision-making skills
Emily Falk is a Professor of Communication, Psychology, and Marketing at the University of Pennsylvania, where she directs the Communication Neuroscience Lab and the Climate Communication Division of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. Her work has been covered in the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, Forbes, and Scientific American, among other outlets. What's the big idea? Every moment is filled with how we've decided to spend our time, and that time defines us. We make value judgements (often automatically) of our options and follow similar patterns, day in and day out. When we decide we want to change in some way, it can be extremely difficult to snap out of our typical decision-making to opt for something else, even if we genuinely care about living differently. By understanding how the brain calculates values to drive daily decisions, we can learn how to explore paths that are more aligned with new goals and evolving self-image. By expanding the power and possibility of our choices, we increase the capacity for inner, societal, and cultural growth. Below, Emily shares five key insights from her new book, What We Value: The Neuroscience of Choice and Change. Listen to the audio version—read by Emily herself—in the Next Big Idea App. 1. Our brains shape what we value. Neuroscience research (first in monkeys and then in humans) has shown that a network of brain regions, known as the value system, computes our daily choices in a process called value calculation. This happens whether we're aware of it or not. Each choice we make is first shaped by what options our brain considers. When I imagined choosing between a run or doing extra work, other options like heading to a karaoke bar with my coworkers or going for a walk with my grandma rarely entered the calculation. In the next phase of decision-making, the value system assigns a subjective worth to each choice based on our past experiences, current context, and future goals. Going for a run is hard. It's the end of the day, and I'm already tired. Sure, the run would be good for my health, but look how many unread emails there are…so I choose to finish up the emails. After we choose, the value system keeps track of how things went, making us more likely to repeat choices that were more rewarding than we expected and less likely to repeat choices that were less rewarding than we expected. After choosing the work, my body felt kind of blah, but my students were making progress on interesting problems, and that felt good. The value our brains assign to different options is dynamic and can shift depending on context, like what mood we're in, what other people are saying or doing, and which parts of the choice we pay attention to. Understanding this can help us identify opportunities to change, and ways to align choices with our bigger-picture goals and values. For me, I knew I needed to find a way to make moving around and spending time with people I love more compelling to my brain in the moment. 2. Our brains shape—and limit—who we are. Our sense of who we are is an important factor in shaping our choices. Neuroscientists have identified brain regions that help construct our sense of 'me' and 'not me,' and when we make decisions this self-relevance is deeply intertwined with the value system. Together they guide us toward choices that are aligned with our perceptions of who we already are. 'We tend to favor choices that reinforce our existing identity, sometimes at the cost of new opportunities and experiences.' Having a coherent sense of who we are can be useful, but it also limits us. We tend to favor choices that reinforce our existing identity, sometimes at the cost of new opportunities and experiences. When I kept choosing work, my identity as a hard-working researcher who always hits deadlines and invests in mentoring students weighed heavily on my value calculations. I didn't think of myself as an athlete, and in the process, I deprived myself of chances to improve as a runner, dancer, or any number of other options. A mountain of research data shows that I'm not alone in this. Most of us cling to ideas and behaviors we consider 'ours,' a phenomenon called the endowment effect. Sometimes, this helps us affirm our core values and reinforce choices that are compatible with longer-term goals, but it can also leave us with a bounded notion of self, meaning that it limits the way we see ourselves. When confronted with evidence that our past behaviors weren't optimal, or that others want us to do things differently, it can make us defensive, leading us to double down on past choices, which can make change harder. When my grandma told me that she wished we could spend more time together, I barely let her finish the sentence before defensively explaining that of course we spent time together—she'd come to my house and hang out with my kids while I cooked dinner, and often we'd even steal a few minutes to walk around the block together. But, no, she patiently explained, that was not what she was after. It wasn't until later when I was able to think about what really matters to me that I could see that what she was asking for was something that I wanted too. 3. We don't decide alone. Neuroscientists have identified brain regions that help us understand what other people think and feel. The brain's social-relevance system helps us connect and coordinate with other people, also shaping the decisions we make. Our sense of what others are doing or thinking strongly affects what we choose, what we're willing to change, and the possibilities we consider. Feeling a sense of status, belonging, and connection serves as a powerful reward, and we often make choices shaped by these forces. When I imagined what other researchers were doing, I imagined them hard at work making progress—not going for runs or walks with their grandmas. It was important to me to be seen as a serious scientist. When I imagined my collaborator's appreciation of my speedy email replies and my students' gratitude for timely feedback, the decision to keep working made even more sense. 'Feeling a sense of status, belonging, and connection serves as a powerful reward.' But, although the social relevance system can help us understand others, it can also mislead us. I was imagining what others would think and feel if I left work, and my social relevance system was very convincing, even though in reality, I didn't actually know. I had never fact-checked those assumptions. The same can be said when our social relevance system paints such a vivid picture that we feel certain we know why a co-worker didn't invite us to lunch or why our spouse is frustrated. By keeping us aligned with others, the social relevance system can do useful things like keep us current on trends. Or it can do harmful things like deluding us into agreeing with popular but patently false social media posts. It also shapes what we think is acceptable and desirable regarding whether we should spend a beautiful autumn afternoon at the office or on a jog. 4. We can work with our brains to create change. Many of us have been taught that hard work and pain are necessary for achievement. Theodore Roosevelt went so far as to suggest that 'Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty…' But neuroscience research highlights that small shifts in how we frame decisions can change our value calculations. My hope is that understanding how this works might make change easier. Our value system serves as the bridge between where we are now and where we want to be, and the self- and social-relevance systems shape what we value. If we want to change ourselves, the people we care about, or even society, we need to harness these systems and leverage key ingredients for change, such as shifting focus, letting go of defensiveness, and expanding where the inputs to our value calculations come from in the first place. Based on what we know about the brain's value system, we can shift our focus to different aspects of a situation to align our emotions with our objectives. For instance, we can leverage the brain's natural tendency to prioritize immediate gratification to make future-oriented choices feel more rewarding in the present. Instead of choosing between immediate and future rewards, we can find ways to bridge them. Returning to the whisper in the back of my mind, reminding me to spend more time with my grandma, I knew I needed to find a way to make walks with Grandma Bev compatible with the other immediate pressures factoring into my value calculations. One day, walking home from work, a podcast episode created a small bridge in my thinking. The episode of How to Save a Planet highlighted the joy of biking. What if, instead of driving to Bev's, arriving stressed from the traffic and struggling to find parking, I biked? What if I had some time to myself outside and got some exercise on the way? The immediate reward of checking something off of my work to-do list was offset by the opportunity to enjoy a bike ride in addition to the reward of spending time with my grandma. Hearing these regular people on the podcast teetering around on bikes also made me think that I could be that kind of person too. 'We can shift our focus to different aspects of a situation to align our emotions with our objectives.' There was still the issue of not wanting my grandma to be right when she pointed out that we weren't spending much quality time together. Should I admit I was wrong? Using what we know about the self-relevance system, to combat defensiveness, we can focus on 'self-transcendent values,' which focus on the things that matter most to us. Zooming out like this to focus on our core values, or the well-being of others and the world, allows us to see that being wrong about something doesn't have to mean we're a bad person, or that everything about us has to change. We can hold onto a core sense of self while opening ourselves to changing what's not working and letting go of preconceived notions of who we are. Finally, turning to the social relevance system, the people who most immediately come to mind when we make choices get an outsized influence. When I was thinking about the people I spent my days with at work, it made work rewards salient. And this isn't just true when it comes to decisions about how we spend our afternoons. All kinds of decisions, from the products we buy to what we think is important politically, are shaped by the voices we imagine most readily. Research shows that the people we spend time with are often similar to us in many ways. To counteract known biases in the social relevance system, we can audit who is and isn't part of our social networks and actively bring in new ideas through what we read, listen to, and spend time with. This expands our universe of choices, provides new and unexpected perspectives, and improves our ability to come up with creative solutions to problems. 5. Shaping the future starts in our minds. Our choices don't just shape our own lives; they ripple outward, influencing culture and collective values. Research shows that norms are deeply shaped by those around us. Just as observing others influences our value calculations, we serve as role models for the people who see what we do. In this way, our own value calculations influence the people around us. When I share stories about my grandma with my students and colleagues, I'm not just telling them about my family. I'm opening a possibility for them to prioritize spending time with their loved ones. Consciously and unconsciously, our actions change what others value. The ways we see ourselves can influence what is possible for others, and what we think is possible shapes the culture of the future.
Telegraph
11-05-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
The secret to making the third chapter of your life as exciting as the first
When you're a teenager, life looks like a never-ending series of milestones. The first school, university, relationship, job. But by 50, often with a degree, a marriage, children and homeownership behind you, it can be hard to know where to go next. There's a good reason for the old adage that life really starts when you hit 50, however. Freed from the path dictated by social norms, this decade is the perfect time to start living life in the way you've always wanted to. Midlife is often the time when we realise who we really are: senior at work, well-respected by your friends and family, you can be yourself without the fear of judgement that might have earlier been crippling. To make the most of this third chapter of your life, take the advice of Professor Emily Falk, neuroscientist, author and a leading expert in the science of how we make decisions. It's not the big moments but the everyday choices that so often lead to happiness or success, she says, but when it comes to eating better, exercising, spending more time with family and succeeding professionally, it can sometimes feel like we're battling our own brains. The force of habit can be enormous, having spent many years doing the same things day in, day out, with less energy to devote to positive transformation. It needn't be that way, according to Prof Falk's new book, What We Value: The Neuroscience of Choice and Change. Its purpose is to help people understand why they do what they do, and to get back in the driver's seat and have the life they want. 'We keep the capacity to learn, change and grow throughout our whole lives,' Prof Falk says. It's entirely possible to be successful and get the things you want out of life after 50, whatever they happen to be. Here is her advice to work with your brain and make happier, healthier choices. 1. Be more adventurous about trying healthier foods We all know it's important to eat healthily but as we get older and become set in our ways it often hard to change our diet. Research suggests that it can take as long as 66 days, or 10 weeks, to fully incorporate a new habit into our daily lives. But by becoming more adventurous, even with what we choose to eat, we can shortcut our way to better health. Our brains keep track of the payoff of different decisions that we make, Prof Falk adds, generating what neuroscientists call a 'positive prediction error' – when the actual outcome of a new behaviour is better than we'd expected. Having a whirl with kale or asparagus and finding you love it is the best way to encourage yourself to eat more healthily in the future. It may sound obvious, but eating healthily involves trading what we want in the moment (crisps, chocolate, cheese) for the foods that we know will keep us slim and healthy in the decades to come. This is precisely why it's so hard. 'Your brain's value system isn't objective – it doesn't just take into account what will fill you up or fuel your body well,' Prof Falk says. This is not how we are wired. 'In the moment that you're making a decision about what to eat, we often focus on immediate rewards like how the food tastes, rather than how it makes you feel or what it'll do to your body if you eat regularly.' For this reason, 'we have to work with our brain's natural tendencies, instead of against them,' Prof Falk explains. That could mean trying lots of different healthy foods to see what you genuinely enjoy, perhaps pairing them with safer foods to make the process less jarring (a new kind of vegetable you might normally avoid with your favourite pasta sauce, for example). 2. Tailor your exercise to your age Don't force yourself to do exercise you don't enjoy. If the last time you exercised was running half marathons in your 30s remember you're a very different person now. Working with your brain means finding something that you actually enjoy, rather than forcing yourself into something that feels totally intimidating, like marathon training,' Prof Falk says. 'Start with something that's within your comfort zone.' That said, there are ways to expand it. 'Your brain tends to value things that are consistent with your identity,' says Prof Falk. 'I never thought of myself as particularly athletic, but my brother helped me see how my identity as a hard-working academic could be compatible with reaching my running goals.' Once you find a form of exercise you like – again, a case of experimentation – then Prof Falk advises that you 'stack' your exercise with other things you like to do. 'If you are a social person, try going for a walk with a friend or calling your kids while you do it,' she says. 'If it's jogging, try keeping one of your favourite podcasts to listen to exclusively while you run, so that you have something to look forward to.'All of this makes it more likely that you'll exercise regularly, an important consideration given that adults are encouraged to carry out at least 150 minutes of exercise over the course of each week. 'It's all about finding what's enjoyable for the 'me' that's here right now,' she says, 'rather than toughing something out for a future impact that might be harder to envision.' This will make it far easier to stick to the new habit you want to build. 3. Don't feel guilty about not doing things – think of ways that will make you enjoy them more Prof Falk opens her book with an anecdote about her grandmother, Beverly. In her 30s, she always wanted to spend more time with her grandmother, but found it hard to make the time, as a busy mother and academic. 'Bev is one of the most important people in my life,' Prof Falk says. As an expert in what motivates our behaviour, 'shouldn't I know how to make a choice to prioritise time with her?' It's a dilemma familiar to most of us: there never seems to be time in the day for what really matters. The first step is to make it all easier for yourself by identifying what's holding you back, and replacing it with something that benefits you instantly, 'as your brain tends to prioritise this,' Prof Falk explains. She decided to cycle to her grandmother's house every day, cutting out the stress and boredom of a drive. Her initial hesitation, feeling worn out after a long day at work, was replaced with excitement, to spend more time in nearby green space and have a window of time for herself. 4. Learn how to be a better listener and to take criticism well Many of us want to reduce the friction we experience with other people. It's easier to do than you might think, according to Prof Falk, and the best place to start is to make sure that you're on the same page as the people you're interacting with. 'The assumptions we have coming into a conversation really dictate whether our brains get into sync with other people's,' she says. 'If you know you need to have a conversation with your child about their grades, and they think that their teacher is out to get them, while you think that their teacher is trying to push them to be their best, then that misalignment might mean you are actually focusing on different things, or interpreting things differently.' Being primed for one sort of discussion gives our brains access to different memories and relevant information about an issue. Before a difficult conversation, make sure that everyone involved is aware of what it's about. More than that, instead of making assumptions about how other people see things, 'be curious and explore more about what's going on for the other person. Even if you disagree, by understanding their perspective, you can make a plan for how to move forward together.' This is especially true when it comes to taking criticism. Our brains are 'so good at generating predictions about what other people think and therefore what they're going to do, for better or worse,' says Prof Falk. Instead of jumping to conclusions about what a piece of feedback from a friend, family member or colleague means, 'try to stay curious and open about what's actually behind their frustration', Prof Falk advises. 'The fact that they are sharing it in the first place could mean that they want to improve their relationship with you.' 5. Recognise you're changing as much as you did when you were 16 Your 50s are a time of immense change. Clinging to a concrete sense of who we are (or who we've been) is a trigger factor for a classic midlife crisis. To avoid this, we have to let it go. You might roll your eyes at this, but one way to do that is by meditating. 'What happens when people meditate regularly is that the function of the brain's self relevance system changes, which we see represented in brain scans,' says Prof Falk. In plain English, meditating helps people to be more flexible in the way that they see themselves and feel more connected to the world around them. It doesn't have to be an hour every day: '10 minutes a day is a good start,' says Prof Falk. It's also important to remember that 'just because your brain tells you something about who you are, it's not necessarily true,' Prof Falk says. Question negative thoughts that come up about the past and try to focus on what you're doing in the present. Trying new things at this time of life can be helpful too, even if it feels alien. When you go somewhere new on holiday, or try a new restaurant, and it doesn't quite live up to expectation, then reappraisal is a useful tool, says Prof Falk. 'If you go on a holiday and it rains the whole time, instead of focusing on what a bummer it is not to be able to do all of the fantastic things you planned to do outside, you might focus on chances to connect with the people you're with, explore indoor activities you wouldn't have otherwise considered, or do the same activities you planned outside and end up with a story to tell later. Focusing on the opportunity to try new things, rather than the disappointment, can change the way you feel about the trip.' All of which can help anyone face old age more bravely – but nothing more so than actually picturing your older, retired self. 'There was a study where people were shown older versions of themselves, using a virtual reality headset. Afterwards, when asked to say how much they would hypothetically allocate to a retirement fund, the participants saved twice as much.' To make better decisions for the future, bring the future to you by picturing it as vividly as you can.
