Chatter

by Ethan Kross

  when it comes to our inner voice: For a discussion of the role that spreading activation theories play in rumination, see Rusting and Nolen-Hoeksema, “Regulating Responses to Anger.”

  most effective verbal exchanges: Andrew C. High and James Price Dillard, “A Review and Meta-analysis of Person-Centered Messages and Social Support Outcomes,” Communication Studies 63 (2012): 99–118; Frederic Nils and Bernard Rimé, “Beyond the Myth of Venting: Social Sharing Modes Determine Emotional and Social Benefits from Distress Disclosure,” European Journal of Social Psychology 42 (2012): 672–681; Stephen J. Lepore et al., “It’s Not That Bad: Social Challenges to Emotional Disclosure Enhance Adjustment to Stress,” Anxiety, Stress, and Coping 17 (2004): 341–361; Anika Batenburg and Enny Das, “An Experimental Study on the Effectiveness of Disclosing Stressful Life Events and Support Messages: When Cognitive Reappraisal Support Decreases Emotional Distress, and Emotional Support Is Like Saying Nothing at All,” PLoS One 9 (2014): e114169; and Stephanie Tremmel and Sabine Sonnentag, “A Sorrow Halved? A Daily Diary Study on Talking About Experienced Workplace Incivility and Next-Morning Negative Affect,” Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 23 (2018): 568–583.

  prefer to not cognitively reframe: Gal Sheppes, “Transcending the ‘Good and Bad’ and ‘Here and Now’ in Emotion Regulation: Costs and Benefits of Strategies Across Regulatory Stages,” Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 61 (2020). For further discussion of the role that time plays in social exchanges, see Rimé, “Emotion Elicits the Social Sharing of Emotion.”

  Once the hostage takers understood: Christopher S. Wren, “2 Give Up After Holding 42 Hostages in a Harlem Bank,” New York Times, April 19, 1973; Barbara Gelb, “A Cool-Headed Cop Who Saves Hostages,” New York Times, April 17, 1977; Gregory M. Vecchi et al., “Crisis (Hostage) Negotiation: Current Strategies and Issues in High-Risk Conflict Resolution,” Aggression and Violent Behavior 10 (2005): 533–551; Gary Noesner, Stalling for Time (New York: Random House, 2010); “Police Negotiation Techniques from the NYPD Crisis Negotiations Team,” Harvard Law School, Nov. 11, 2019, https://www.pon.harvard.edu/​daily/​crisis-negotiations/​crisis-negotiations-and-negotiation-skills-insights-from-the-new-york-city-police-department-hostage-negotiations-team/.

  diversify their sources of support: Elaine O. Cheung, Wendi L. Gardner, and Jason F. Anderson, “Emotionships: Examining People’s Emotion-Regulation Relationships and Their Consequences for Well-Being,” Social Psychological and Personality Science 6 (2015): 407–414.

  global grassroots movement: It Gets Better Project, itgetsbetter.org/; “How It All Got Started,” https://itgetsbetter.org/​blog/​initiatives/​how-it-all-got-started/; Brian Stelter, “Campaign Offers Help to Gay Youths,” New York Times, Oct. 18, 2010; and Dan Savage, “Give ’Em Hope,” The Stranger, Sept. 23, 2010.

  psychological debriefing: McNally, Bryant, and Ehlers, “Does Early Psychological Intervention Promote Recovery from Posttraumatic Stress?”; and van Emmerik et al., “Single Session Debriefing After Psychological Trauma.”

  powerful neurobiological experience: For reviews of the empathy literature, see Zaki, War for Kindness; de Waal and Preston, “Mammalian Empathy”; and Erika Weisz and Jamil Zaki, “Motivated Empathy: A Social Neuroscience Perspective,” Current Opinion in Psychology 24 (2018): 67–71.

  damages not only our self-esteem: The relationship scientists Eshkol Rafaeli and Marci Gleason offer an incisive review of the social-support literature in Eshkol Rafaeli and Marci Gleason, “Skilled Support Within Intimate Relationships,” Journal of Family Theory and Review 1 (2009): 20–37. They also provide a detailed discussion of the myriad additional ways that visible support can backfire. They note that it may focus attention on the source of stress, enhance how indebted one feels to a partner, highlight relationship inequities, and be perceived as hostile when the support is delivered with criticism (however well-intentioned).

  New York bar exam: Niall Bolger, Adam Zuckerman, and Ronald C. Kessler, “Invisible Support and Adjustment to Stress,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79 (2000): 953–61. For an experimental conceptual replication of these results, see Niall Bolger and David Amarel, “Effects of Social Support Visibility on Adjustment to Stress: Experimental Evidence,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 92 (2007): 458–475.

  A study on marriages: Yuthika U. Girme et al., “Does Support Need to Be Seen? Daily Invisible Support Promotes Next Relationship Well-Being,” Journal of Family Psychology 32 (2018): 882–893.

  meeting their self-improvement goals: Yuthika U. Girme, Nickola C. Overall, and Jeffry A. Simpson, “When Visibility Matters: Short-Term Versus Long-Term Costs and Benefits of Visible and Invisible Support,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 39 (2013): 1441–1454.

  insights into the circumstances: Katherine S. Zee and Niall Bolger, “Visible and Invisible Social Support: How, Why, and When,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 28 (2019): 314–320. Also see Katherine S. Zee et al., “Motivation Moderates the Effects of Social Support Visibility,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 114 (2018): 735–765.

  Caring physical contact: Brittany K. Jakubiak and Brooke C. Feeney, “Affectionate Touch to Promote Relational, Psychological, and Physical Well-Being in Adulthood: A Theoretical Model and Review of the Research,” Personality and Social Psychology Review 21 (2016): 228–252.

  one second of contact: Sander L. Koole, Mandy Tjew A. Sin, and Iris K. Schneider, “Embodied Terror Management: Interpersonal Touch Alleviates Existential Concerns Among Individuals with Low Self-Esteem,” Psychological Science 25 (2014): 30–37.

  teddy bear: Ibid.; and Kenneth Tai, Xue Zheng, and Jayanth Narayanan, “Touching a Teddy Bear Mitigates Negative Effects of Social Exclusion to Increase Prosocial Behavior,” Social Psychological and Personality Science 2 (2011): 618–626.

  result of the brain: Francis McGlone, Johan Wessberg, and Hakan Olausson, “Discriminative and Affective Touch: Sensing and Feeling,” Neuron 82 (2014): 737–751. For discussion of the role that C-fibers play in social support, see Jakubiak and Feeney, “Affectionate Touch to Promote Relational, Psychological, and Physical Well-Being in Adulthood.”

  social organ: India Morrison, Line S. Loken, and Hakan Olausson, “The Skin as a Social Organ,” Experimental Brain Research 204 (2009): 305–314.

  nature of co-rumination via social media: David S. Lee et al., “When Chatting About Negative Experiences Helps—and When It Hurts: Distinguishing Adaptive Versus Maladaptive Social Support in Computer-Mediated Communication,” Emotion 20 (2020): 368–375. For additional evidence indicating that the social sharing processes generalize to social media interactions, see Mina Choi and Catalina L. Toma, “Social Sharing Through Interpersonal Media.”

  Chapter Six: Outside In

  In 1963: Erik Gellman, Robert Taylor Homes, Chicago Historical Society, http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/​pages/​2478.html.

  Robert Taylor Homes: Aaron Modica, “Robert R. Taylor Homes, Chicago, Illinois (1959–2005),” BlackPast, Dec. 19, 2009, blackpast.org/​aah/​robert-taylor-homes-chicago-illinois-1959-2005; D. Bradford Hunt, “What Went Wrong with Public Housing in Chicago? A History of the Robert Taylor Homes,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 94 (2001): 96–123; Hodding Carter, Crisis on Federal Street, PBS (1987).

  Ming Kuo: Frances E. Kuo, “Coping with Poverty: Impacts of Environment and Attention in the Inner City,” Environment and Behavior 33 (2001): 5–34.

  Roger Ulrich: Roger S. Ulrich, “View Through a Window May Influence Recovery from Surgery,” Science 224 (1984): 420–421.

  green revelations have followed: For recent reviews of the link between nature exposure and health, see Gregory N. Bratman et al., “Nature and Mental Health: An Ecosystem Service Perspective,” Science Advances 5 (2019): eaax0903; Roly Russell et al., “Humans and Nature:
How Knowing and Experiencing Nature Affect Well-Being,” Annual Review of Environmental Resources 38 (2013): 473–502; Ethan A. McMahan and David Estes, “The Effect of Contact with Natural Environments on Positive and Negative Affect: A Meta-analysis,” Journal of Positive Psychology 10 (2015): 507–519; and Terry Hartig et al., “Nature and Health,” Annual Review of Public Health 35 (2014): 207–228.

  ten thousand individuals in England: Mathew P. White et al., “Would You Be Happier Living in a Greener Urban Area? A Fixed-Effects Analysis of Panel Data,” Psychological Science 24 (2013): 920–928.

  seven years younger: Omid Kardan et al., “Neighborhood Greenspace and Health in a Large Urban Center,” Scientific Reports 5 (2015): 11610.

  entire population of England: Richard Mitchell and Frank Popham, “Effect of Exposure to Natural Environment on Health Inequalities: An Observational Population Study,” Lancet 372 (2008): 1655–1660. Also see David Rojas-Rueda et al., “Green Spaces and Mortality: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Cohort Studies,” Lancet Planet Health 3 (2019): 469–477.

  Stephen and Rachel Kaplan: Rachel Kaplan and Stephen Kaplan, The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989). I also drew on this article to tell the Kaplans’ story: Rebecca A. Clay, “Green Is Good for You,” Monitor on Psychology 32 (2001): 40.

  William James: William James, Psychology: The Briefer Course (New York: Holt, 1892).

  brain’s limited resources: For an excellent discussion of the distinction between voluntary and involuntary attention as it relates to nature and attention restoration, see Stephen Kaplan and Marc G. Berman, “Directed Attention as a Common Resource for Executive Functioning and Self-Regulation,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 5 (2010): 43–57. Also see Timothy J. Buschman and Earl K. Miller, “Top-Down Versus Bottom-Up Control of Attention in the Prefrontal and Posterior Parietal Cortices,” Science 315 (2007): 1860–1862.

  One now classic study: Marc G. Berman, John Jonides, and Stephen Kaplan, “The Cognitive Benefits of Interacting with Nature,” Psychological Science 19 (2008): 1207–1212. Also see Terry Hartig et al., “Tracking Restoration in Natural and Urban Field Settings,” Journal of Environmental Psychology 23 (2003): 109–123.

  clinically depressed participants: Marc G. Berman et al., “Interacting with Nature Improves Cognition and Affect for Individuals with Depression,” Journal of Affective Disorders 140 (2012): 300–305.

  Another satellite-imagery study: Kristine Engemann et al., “Residential Green Space in Childhood Is Associated with Lower Risk of Psychiatric Disorders from Adolescence into Adulthood,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 116 (2019): 5188–5193. Also see White et al., “Would You Be Happier Living in a Greener Urban Area?”

  Palo Alto, California: Gregory N. Bratman et al., “Nature Experience Reduces Rumination and Subgenual Prefrontal Cortex Activation,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 112 (2015): 8567–8572. For a conceptual replication at the behavioral level, see Gregory N. Bratman et al., “The Benefits of Nature Experience: Improved Affect and Cognition,” Landscape and Urban Planning 138 (2015): 41–50, which linked a nature (versus urban) walk with improved rumination, anxiety, positive affect, and working memory functioning.

  born and bred city dweller: There’s a natural level of skepticism that many people feel when they hear about these findings on the cognitive and emotional restorative effects of nature. Indeed, one clever set of studies found that people consistently underestimate how much interacting with green spaces will improve their mood. Elizabeth K. Nisbet and John M. Zelenski, “Underestimating Nearby Nature: Affective Forecasting Errors Obscure the Happy Path to Sustainability,” Psychological Science 22 (2011): 1101–1106.

  68 percent of the world’s population: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision (New York: United Nations, 2019); and Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser, “Urbanization,” Our World in Data (2018, updated 2019), https://ourworldindata.org/​urbanization#migration-to-towns-and-cities-is-very-recent-mostly-limited-to-the-past-200-years.

  six-minute video of neighborhood streets: Bin Jiang et al., “A Dose-Response Curve Describing the Relationship Between Urban Tree Cover Density and Self-Reported Stress Recovery,” Environment and Behavior 48 (2016): 607–629. Also see Daniel K. Brown, Jo L. Barton, and Valerie F. Gladwell, “Viewing Nature Scenes Positively Affects Recovery of Autonomic Function Following Acute-Mental Stress,” Environmental Science and Technology 47 (2013): 5562–5569; Berman, Jonides, and Kaplan, “Cognitive Benefits of Interacting with Nature”; and McMahan and Estes, “Effect of Contact with Natural Environments on Positive and Negative Affect.”

  improved performance on an attentional task: Stephen C. Van Hedger et al., “Of Cricket Chirps and Car Horns: The Effect of Nature Sounds on Cognitive Performance,” Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 26 (2019): 522–530.

  longer we’re exposed: Danielle F. Shanahan et al., “Health Benefits from Nature Experiences Depend on Dose,” Scientific Reports 6 (2016): 28551. Also see Jiang et al., “Dose-Response Curve Describing the Relationship Between Urban Tree Cover Density and Self-Reported Stress Recovery.”

  ReTUNE: ReTUNE (Restoring Through Urban Nature Experience), The University of Chicago, https://appchallenge.uchicago.edu/​retune/, accessed March 4, 2020. ReTUNE app: https://retune-56d2e.firebaseapp.com/.

  Suzanne Bott: Suzanne Bott, interview by Ethan Kross, Oct. 1, 2008.

  “the most dangerous place in Iraq”: Mark Kukis, “The Most Dangerous Place in Iraq,” Time, Dec. 11, 2006.

  psychologist named Craig Anderson: Craig L. Anderson, Maria Monroy, and Dacher Keltner, “Awe in Nature Heals: Evidence from Military Veterans, At-Risk Youth, and College Students,” Emotion 18 (2018): 1195–1202.

  Awe is the wonder: Jennifer E. Stellar et al., “Self-Transcendent Emotions and Their Social Functions: Compassion, Gratitude, and Awe Bind Us to Others Through Prosociality,” Emotion Review 9 (2017): 200–207; Paul K. Piff et al., “Awe, the Small Self, and Prosocial Behavior,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 108 (2015): 883–899; and Michelle N. Shiota, Dacher Keltner, and Amanda Mossman, “The Nature of Awe: Elicitors, Appraisals, and Effects on Self-Concept,” Cognition and Emotion 21 (2007): 944–963.

  brain during awe-inspiring experiences: Michiel van Elk et al., “The Neural Correlates of the Awe Experience: Reduced Default Mode Network Activity During Feelings of Awe,” Human Brain Mapping 40 (2019): 3561–3574.

  brain responds when people meditate: Judson A. Brewer et al., “Meditation Experience Is Associated with Differences in Default Mode Network Activity and Connectivity,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 108 (2011): 20254–20259. For discussion of how the experience of awe relates to psychedelics in terms of underlying brain function, see van Elk et al., “The Neural Correlates of the Awe Experience: Reduced Default Mode Network Activity During Feelings of Awe.” Also see Robin L. Carhart-Harris et al., “The Entropic Brain: A Theory of Conscious States Informed by Neuroimaging Research with Psychedelic Drugs,” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 3 (2014): 20.

  we developed this emotion: For discussion, see Stellar et al., “Self-Transcendent Emotions and Their Social Functions.”

  center of the world: For example, see Yang Bai et al. “Awe, the Diminished Self, and Collective Engagement: Universals and Cultural Variations in the Small Self,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 113 (2017): 185–209.

  synaptic flow of your thoughts: van Elk et al., “Neural Correlates of the Awe Experience.”

  similar ways as other distancing techniques: For a similar argument, see Phuong Q. Le et al., “When a Small Self Means Manageable Obstacles: Spontaneous Self-Distancing Predic
ts Divergent Effects of Awe During a Subsequent Performance Stressor,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 80 (2019): 59–66. This study also interestingly suggests that people who tend to spontaneously distance when reflecting on negative experiences may benefit the most from experiencing awe prior to delivering a stressful speech in terms of their cardiovascular stress response.

  purchasing a new watch: Melanie Rudd, Kathleen D. Vohs, and Jennifer Aaker, “Awe Expands People’s Perception of Time, Alters Decision Making, and Enhances Well-Being,” Psychological Science 23 (2012): 1130–1136.

  linked with reduced inflammation: Jennifer E. Stellar et al., “Positive Affect and Markers of Inflammation: Discrete Positive Emotions Predict Lower Levels of Inflammatory Cytokines,” Emotion 15 (2015): 129–133.

  One set of studies: Jennifer E. Stellar et al., “Awe and Humility,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 114 (2018): 258–269.

  hallmark features of wisdom: Grossmann and Kross, “Exploring Solomon’s Paradox.”

  caveat to consider: Amie Gordon et al., “The Dark Side of the Sublime: Distinguishing a Threat-Based Variant of Awe,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 113 (2016): 310–328.

  “What I battle hardest to do”: Rafael Nadal, Rafa: My Story, with John Carlin (New York: Hachette Books, 2013); Chris Chase, “The Definitive Guide to Rafael Nadal’s 19 Bizarre Tennis Rituals,” USA Today, June 5, 2019.

  compensatory control: Mark J. Landau, Aaron C. Kay, and Jennifer A. Whitson, “Compensatory Control and the Appeal of a Structured World,” Psychological Bulletin 141 (2015): 694–722.