Does religion make you happier?
These days, many of us are prone to see religion as an artifact of pre-scientific humanity, full of non-scientific claims. For that reason, religion often gets written off as having no measurable value for everyday life. But what if the so-called goods of religion could be studied?
In his most recent book How God Works, psychologist David DeSteno, suggests that religion has indeed been studied in this way, and that the results could change the way religion is viewed in the public sphere. In this episode, we hear from David as he discusses the ways the world’s great religious traditions line up with cutting-edge psychological and neuroscientific findings - in other words, the ways in which religion leads to a longer, happier, healthier life.
Show Notes:
Similar episodes
Resources mentioned this episode
JOIN NSE+ Today! Our subscriber only community with bonus episodes, ad-free listening, and discounts on live shows
Subscribe to episodes: Apple | Spotify | Amazon | Google | YouTube
Follow Us: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Follow Lee: Instagram | Twitter
Join our Email List: nosmallendeavor.com
See Privacy Policy: Privacy Policy
Amazon Affiliate Disclosure: Tokens Media, LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
Transcript:
Lee: [00:00:00] I'm Lee C. Camp and this is No Small Endeavor - exploring what it means to live a good life.
David: When we're looking at helping people flourish in life, why not look to the traditions that have helped people try to find meaning and connection and scientifically examine what they do?
Lee: That's David DeSteno, psychologist and author of How God Works: The Science Behind the Benefits of Religion.
David: Simply saying you believe in God or not doesn't predict much, but being engaged with your faith, the more you do that, the happier, healthier, and longer life you have. And you can't argue with the data.
Lee: Today, a fascinating conversation for believers and atheists alike, around what some call the practical goods of religion.
All this, coming right up.[00:01:00]
I am Lee C. Camp. This is No Small Endeavor - exploring what it means to live a good life.
It's been said, you should never talk about politics and religion in polite society. Too many opportunities for hostility to break out. One reason I like being an academic is that often, though not always, for sure, the-- often, though, the academic community is able to talk about potentially hostile matters in a way that allows fruitful conversation among people who have honest disagreement.
This sort of approach is seen in a recent development in which social science research is examining longstanding religious practices and simply asking about the benefits that such practices may bring to their practitioners, which brings us to our guest today, David DeSteno, prominent psychologist investigating just such questions. Enjoy. [00:02:00]
David DeSteno received his PhD in Psychology from Yale University, is currently a Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University where he directs the Social Emotions group. David is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science in the American Psychological Association, for which he served as Editor-in-Chief of the journal In Motion. He's the author of the book, Emotional Success, the book The Truth About Trust, as well as the bestseller Out of Character.
He frequently writes about his work for publications like the New York Times, the Atlantic, Harvard Business Review, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. Today we're discussing his book How God Works: The Science Behind the Benefits of Religion.
Welcome, David.
David: Oh, hi. Thank you for having me on. I'm happy to join you.
Lee: Yeah. Grateful to have you with us.
So, broadly speaking, as I've understood what you're up to with your work, you're a research scientist who's trying to understand, perhaps, the [00:03:00] mechanisms of the development of character traits. Is that a, is that a fair way to kind of summarize your broad--
David: Yeah, I think that's fair.
A lot of our work focuses on how do we help people develop virtues, things like, you know, honesty, fairness, compassion, gratitude, and, and how does that help them flourish in life? And, and if we can nudge that a little higher in society in general, how might that, that help us all?
When I was an undergraduate in college, I was trying to decide between being a, a religious studies major and a psychologist, and not, not theology, but kind of the history of religions, because I was always interested in how do we find meaning in life, how do we become a good person, what does that mean?
And ultimately, I decided to be a psychologist because I felt like I could run experiments and get some answers rather than, than, than debate things. But the more I looked at the questions I was interested in, what I began to find over and over again are things that religions have emphasized for many years - things like [00:04:00] gratitude, things like coming together to find connection and pray, things like having empathy and compassion - lead to a better, a better life.
And so I, I feel like I've, I've come full circle and my, my emphasis now is on trying to say, you know, if we want to learn about how to make life better for people and how to help them meet the challenges of life, then we scientists need to be a little bit more humble, because in my field, you know, people kind of look at, at religion as, as superstition.
Uh, and I think that's rather hubristic to think that, you know, millennia of thought on how to help people be better in the world, be happier, deal with grief, and find meaning has nothing to offer. And so I am really interested in, in how do things like these virtues, how do certain spiritual practices help us thrive in life?
And, and I do it from a scientific perspective, but I'm really open to the idea that there's much to learn from faith communities.
Lee: Hmm. Yeah. That's fascinating. I, you know, my [00:05:00] background's in theology. I think one of the things that's helped me as I've-- continue to go back and look at kind of the great, what I think of the great questions in the field of, of ethics, for example - what's the meaning of life, what's it mean to flourish in life?
The more and more I've been open to listening to psychologists and listening to social scientists, because I find the work that you all are doing-- it seems like especially... I don't know if this is true, but from my layman's perspective, it seems like you all are in this kind of wonderful new season of work in your discipline in the last 20 years, that you're just doing all sorts of new fascinating things and, and teaching us so much.
David: I, I think that's fair. You know, for many decades, a lot of psychology, human psychology, focused on, you know, how do we deal with the negative parts of life? What leads to war, prejudice, distress... and those are important questions and, and we certainly have to look at those, but there's been this, this kind of blooming interest in, well, just cutting down the negative doesn't mean you're making life wonderful.
And so how do we, how do we help people actually not just be okay, [00:06:00] but thrive and, and flourish? And I, I, I'm glad someone like you says that because what I'm really hoping to do is, is to open that conversation because I think we have a lot to learn from each other. And if we're willing to do that in a respectful way, scientists and, and theologians, then I think we're gonna find answers quicker.
Lee: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, thank you.
Before we go to, uh, How God Works, I, I did want to ask you to just to tell us a little bit about your book Emotional Success. Maybe one of these days we can come back around next year and do a full interview on Emotional Success, but I'm fascinated with the thesis there, as I understand, that people like Angela Duckworth who have taught us kind of the crucial nature of grit and the significance of perseverance in, in living well, and as I understand, what you do in that book is you say, well, how does one actually facilitate grit or perseverance in one's self?
So could you kind of give us a quick, uh, summary of some of the things you learned?
David: Yeah, sure. I mean, I, I think it-- there, there's no doubt that, that we all have this-- the human mind has this, this [00:07:00] inclination for immediate gratification. And, you know, throughout history, the world was a lot less certain than it is now. And so, you know, having a bird in the hand could be better than than two in the bush, so to speak.
But for a lot of things, it's the ability to accept some sacrifices in the short term, to work harder to delay gratification, that leads to thriving in the, in the long term, whether it's not spending your money on the new iPhone and, and saving it for retirement, whether it's eating well instead of eating junk food for better health, exercising, all of these things.
So I think Angela is exactly right in the idea of grit and perseverance being important. The question is how do we get it? And if you look at the data, right, people on average fail about 20% of the times they try and stick to a goal in their daily life, and when that goal is, is really a big one, the things that matter most, it's even worse.
So consider New Year's resolutions, right? It's things that we all kind of try to set our goals for. By mid-January, 25% of those have [00:08:00] already gone by the wayside, and by the end of the year, less than 10% have been kept. And so all these life hacks that you read about - rely on your willpower or try and distract yourself from what you want - they don't work.
And when I think about this, right, when I think about the term 'grit,' what inspired me is I don't think about the CEO who worked hard or the violinist who's spending hours a day practicing, right? I think about the single parent who was working two jobs to save money to put their kids through college, or the grandfather who has emphysema and is dragging the the oxygen tank behind him to go to his granddaughter's first show, right?
We do hard things like that, not because we think we should, but because we feel we should. And emotions are a huge driver. And so what we've found in our work is that things that we call 'moral emotions,' things like gratitude and compassion, actually change the way our mind values immediate [00:09:00] gratification. And it makes us much more willing to persevere toward future goals.
And so, you know, for example, we have people and we, and we make them take pride in their work. If they-- pride's another emotion, not arrogance, but actually pride. Where we make them feel gratitude and suddenly they will persevere on tasks or-- more than they would, or they, they become more willing to save money then. We, we offer them, you can have a small amount of money now, or a larger amount, you know, in a few months, a year. They become much more patient and willing to invest in the future.
And so the thesis of that work, and there's lots of experiments in there, is that if we cultivate these moral emotions, things like gratitude, compassion, deserved pride in, in our own abilities and works, that actually makes it easier for us to persevere, and they work a lot more than willpower does because you're not, you're not fighting to kind of overcome immediate gratification. When you feel [00:10:00]those emotions, they just change what we value.
Think about when you feel grateful to someone. What do you wanna do? You wanna pay them back, but not, not just what they've done, and maybe even more, and keep it going, even at some cost to yourself. And so if we cultivate these emotions in life, perseverance and grit becomes easier while it's also cementing our social contacts to other people, which are the things that support us in, in, in hard times.
Lee: So let's go back to How God Works and spend the bulk of our time there. You began with this notion of religio-prospecting versus bio-prospecting. Would you kind of fill that out for us?
David: Yeah, it's a terrible word, but, but, um-- religio-prospecting. So bio-prospecting is this [00:11:00] process where... it began earlier, in mid 20th century, right?
The pharmaceutical companies were developing all of this technology to look for and develop new medicines, but they didn't really know where to look. And so they sent staff members to look for traditional cures. So they would go to the Amazon, they would go to Asia, they would go to traditional cultures, and they would say, you know, what do you use to cure X, Y, and Z?
And then they would bring those substances back and examine them. And sure, a lot of them didn't do anything. But from those examples, from those endeavors, we have found medications that cure certain types of cancer, that deal with pain. And so the idea here is, what I'm arguing is that when we're looking at helping people flourish in life, why not religio-prospect?
That is, why not look to the traditions that have helped people try to find meaning and connection and joy and comfort in life, and scientifically examine [00:12:00] what they do in a respectful way? Because what I found in my work, and you know, we, we can talk about this as we go forward, are examples that do exactly that.
So one example that kind of started me on this route is, for a long time now, scientists have been studying the idea of, of, of meditation, and what we find is that, sure, it, it affects your memory and it relaxes you in parts of your brain, but that's not what it was created for. Meditation was created to reduce the suffering of individuals, both yourself and others.
And what we found is that after eight weeks of meditation, people spontaneously became more compassionate. And so you might say, well, Dave, how do you measure compassion? If I ask you, "would you be compassionate?" what are people gonna say, "no"? So what we do is we actually set up challenges for people that they don't know.
So they would come to our office, our lab, they'd enter a waiting room. They'd think they were gonna be there for a study where they were gonna come in and we were gonna kind of measure parts of their [00:13:00] brain activity. But what we really did was, in that waiting room, there were three chairs and two were filled with actors that we hired.
So the person would come in and take the third chair. After that, after about two minutes, we had another actor come in who was on crutches. She didn't really need crutches, but she was on crutches. She had her foot in one of those, you know, casts that makes it look like your foot is broken. And she was, she was kind of wincing in pain. The two actors we told, ignore her. Thumb your phone, like, pretend you don't want to see her. And the question was, what would the person who was in the study actually do?
And what we found is that, among people who didn't meditate, about 15% of them got up and said, hey, uh, uh, you look like you're in pain. Can-- you know, do you want my chair? Can I help you in any way?
But among the people who had meditated, we boosted that to 50%, right? We, we more than tripled it. And we've replicated this.
Lee: Hmm.
David: And we've done it with other studies now, where we have actually people working together, and one actor kind of insults the subjects and then the subjects are given an [00:14:00] opportunity, they think, to seek a little vengeance on this person and cause them a little discomfort. Of course we don't, we don't let them do that.
But what we find is that the people who meditate are much less likely to want to escalate, and tit for tat violence, right, and the aggression.
Lee: Huh.
David: And so what we're showing is just this, this small practice, actually changes people's compassionate behavior. And we found other things with gratitude and et cetera.
So to me, what this signifies is there is a wisdom in these traditions, right? Meditation can't be the only thing that works this way. It's not a fluke. So let us look at practices from different faith traditions and see if they change things.
Now the big question there, right, that I, that I, I try to get around in my book is, we're not gonna ask the question of does God exist, because that's a question that science cannot answer, even though many scientists think they can. Even Richard Dawkins, who's one of the most famous atheists around, will say, "I can't be a hundred [00:15:00] percent sure that God doesn't exist."
And so that's a question of faith, right? And so for me it's like, let's not argue about that. I don't know if God exists. I, I wouldn't presuppose to know that.
But that doesn't mean we can't study these practices, because you can think of, if you're an atheist, you can think of these practices as something that people honed over generations and stumbled into and figured out. And if you're a person of faith, you can believe that these are practices that a loving creator gave to his, her, or its creations to help them thrive in life.
And I wouldn't presuppose to know the answer to that. But I think if we can put that question to the side, we can all come together to see what can we learn from this to make life better for people?
Lee: You are listening to No Small Endeavor and our conversation with [00:16:00] David DeSteno on his book How God Works: The Science Behind the Benefits of Religion.
I love hearing from you. Tell us what you're reading, who you're paying attention to, or send us feedback about today's episode. You can reach me at lee@nosmallendeavor.com, or you can follow me on social media at Lee C. Camp.
You can get show notes for this episode in your podcast app or wherever you listen. These notes include links to resources mentioned in the episode, as well as a PDF of my complete interview notes and a full transcript.
We'd be delighted if you'd tell your friends about No Small Endeavor and invite them to join us on the podcast 'cause it helps extend the reach of the beauty, truth, and goodness we are seeking to sow in the world.
Coming up, the link between faith and decreased anxiety, and the goods of living in a faith-based community.
[00:17:00] Early in the book, you talk about kind of two major motifs that you hit throughout the book: beliefs and the quest for connection. "Loneliness Is Hell," as the, as the heading has it there. And one thing you come back to quite a number of times in the various chapters in the book is the link between faith and decreased anxiety.
David: Mm-hmm.
Lee: Can you talk to us a little bit about what you learned there?
David: Yeah, so one thing that is clear in the data is that people who do have a belief in some type of divine power tend to show reduced anxiety. You can see it in lots of ways. You know, one, one area that's very specific is, is around death.
People who believe strongly in a religious tradition, even if that religious tradition isn't one that really emphasizes the afterlife, still have less anxiety about death, they have less anxiety about illness.
And you can even see it on a neurological level. There's some wonderful neuroscientific work that shows as [00:18:00] faith increases, when people make, are confronted with difficult decisions, a center in their brain that is kind of, this is a simplification, but kind of like where the alarm bells go off when we're worried about making the wrong decision or perseverating on things, is quieter. It's actually the same part of the brain that drugs like, like Xanax target. And so having this sense of, of belief actually reduces our anxiety.
And, you know, I, I, I had, uh, I highlighted wonderful work by a psychologist, Andi Clements, who works in Appalachia, where she has shown that having this, this sense of trust, she calls it surrender to God, but it's basically the sense of, I believe there's some force out there that cares about me, leads people to have, you know, lower addiction, lower depression, lower anxiety.
And the sense is not that, that you become unintelligent and don't try and make good decisions. You [00:19:00] make your best decision. But then you kind of trust that someone else is there and looking out for you. And what that does is it, is it tends to prevent us from engaging in a plague of modern life, which is decision fatigue.
Oftentimes, we're all trying to figure out, what's the best thing to do to optimize my life and my outcomes? And we perseverate. And, and, and a belief in faith, in a higher power, in some ways helps us get around that problem, which is really-- you know, everybody thinks more choices are good. Well, maybe two or three choices are better than one.
But when you have lots of choices, it-- and options, it can almost become paralyzing.
Lee: The words you used to describe that last phenomenon you were describing - maximizers.
David: Mm-hmm.
Lee: That used to be so much me when I was younger. And, and, uh, I remember reading Thomas Merton, famous Catholic--
David: Mm-hmm.
Lee: --monk, you know, who-- I think it's in his book, New Seeds of Contemplation, where he talks about precisely that, and how we might have this tendency to try to wring every last bit of pleasure [00:20:00] in the most perfect way possible out of every encounter in life, and just how utterly exhausting it is and how it ruins our capacity for happiness.
David: Yeah, exactly.
Lee: I thought you described that really well.
David: And, and you can see right there, right, that, you know, we psychologists, I'll speak for my field, think we discovered this in the past 15 or 20 years, right?
You can see Thomas Merton knew about-- Now, you know, we can actually test it and I can show you data to prove it's true, and I can show you where in the brain it happens and why it bothers you. But the wisdom was there.
And again, I'm not saying, you know, I'm not saying all ancient wisdom is right. I, my, my mantra is, just like ancient doesn't always mean wise, neither does it always mean foolish.
Where science can help is to help, let's see what makes sense. We have the ability to do this, but we have to be humble enough to look.[00:21:00]
So what led me to this is if you look at medical data, and this is data from Harvard Medical School, the Mayo Clinic, you know, these are well done studies. What you see is that simply saying you believe in God or not doesn't predict much, but being engaged with your faith, practicing it, doing the rituals, attending the services, it's kind of a dose response relationship.
The people who do that, the more you do that, the happier, healthier, and longer life you have. And you can't argue with the data. So the question to me is, what is it about these traditions? I think some of it is, is the anxiety and depression. There's a lot of evidence that this predicts protection against deaths of despair, which have been high, especially during the pan-- pandemic. But even just happiness and and wellbeing.
And so my sense is, let's understand [00:22:00] why, right? That if, if we don't, we're not doing our job.
Lee: Yeah.
So in that particular section, I wondered aloud to myself, does this data imply that fundamentalisms are better at helping? Which would be a troubling, it would be a troubling conclusion from my perspective, but what's, what's your thoughts on that?
David: No--
Lee: 'Cause funda-- well, so you do talk about certainty and a lack of anxiety, and certainly, many fundamentalisms are trying to impose a sort of dogged certainty. So how, how would you distinguish saying no, that's not, that's not required.
David: It's not, it's not that. And in fact, it's not even, it's not even a belief in divine hand as, as I-- you know, I mean, you'll, you'll find the same thing in different faith traditions. Even, even in, in Buddhism, right? Because it's a, it's a theology about basically merging, you know, with nothingness in, in some senses.
So, so it's not, it's not a sense of you must always do X in a fundamentalist way. It's really more a sense of, [00:23:00] I understand my place in the world, I understand that I am not fully in control, and there's something out there, in one way or another, that gives me greater purpose and, and, and connection.
So it's not certainty in the sense of a really orthodox or fundamentalist view that that religion is telling you what to do in every realm of your life. No, it's more a sense of, of comfort and purpose that I think can come from, from many faiths.
So-- and you know, the argument I make, right, is religion provides tools that powerfully move our hearts and minds. Whether they do it for good or for ill, depends upon the motives of the people involved.
Because I, I'm not an apologist for re-- for religion. It has been used, like many ideologies, political ones as well, to lead people to do things that none of us, I think, think are good. To warrant abuse and war, et cetera.
But I think in its, in its true form, in its form that has helped, help us build a, a, a spiritual side, a virtuous [00:24:00] side. It has much to offer.
Lee: Fascinating.
So, um, I've got kind of four psychological social categories that I'm gonna ask you to kind of define and then kind of point how you see these at, at play in your work.
David: Sure.
Lee: The first one, illusory truth effect.
David: So, an illusory truth effect is, is simply when people tend to ascribe something that they witness as having an artificial cause.
So, you know, I, if, if I see someone who has a bad outcome, right, there can be an illusory truth that, well, maybe this, this person deserved it, or it's divine retribution or something.
It's just, it just reflects our tendency to wanna find causes for everything, even when sometimes there may not be.
Lee: And then how do you see that sort of phenomenon at play in, even perhaps, as I understood you, you see that at play sometimes in the way we inculcate beliefs in a [00:25:00] community in a way that might be constructive.
David: Yeah, it can be constructive as well, in the sense that a rationale can be given for certain types of, of positive behaviors.
To me though, the danger of belief sometimes comes around with this sense of what I would call, um, moral hypocrisy, which is there's this fundamental notion that, that we've shown in the lab many times, that our moral compasses as humans are not always objective.
So for example, if I bring you into my lab and I say, oh, you're on the red team and meet Joe here, Joe's on the blue team. And I have you put wristbands on. Suddenly you're a team, even though that really means nothing to you before.
And then I have, I show you Joe, basically commit some type of transgression. Like he'll, he'll cheat on a task. And we've done this, with Joe being an actor. And I say, how, how, how bad was what Joe [00:26:00] did? You'll judge Joe's cheating as more offensive 'cause he's on the opposite team than someone cheating in the exact same way on on your team. And that's not an aspect of religion.
Lee: Huh.
David: That's an aspect of just, are you sharing my ideology or not?
We see that in politics right now, right? The Democrats will excuse Democrat doing the same thing that they'll condemn a Republican for, and, and vice versa. And, and the problem with that is it leads to tension.
But, what we show actually is, in its truer form, right, if we make people actually feel emotions like gratitude or compassion, it, it, it gets rid of that bias, right?
So in, for example, if I bring you into my lab and I say, I want you to say a prayer of gratitude if you're a religious person, or I want you to think of, if you're a non-religious person, think about, um, something that, that you're really grateful for in your life.
And I then give you the opportunity, you yourself, to cheat, you, your odds of cheating go way down. [00:27:00] If I show you someone on your team, cheating, you're much more willing to condemn them. That is, your, your, your moral sense goes up.
And so what I'm always arguing here is, is, in, in religion, we have to be careful because belief is important, but belief can be easily used in a motivated way to justify the actions, our own actions, right?
The saying goes, there's, there's a small difference between being rational and having a rationale - that little 'e' on the end. And so we always have to be true to ourselves. And you know, one, one example that I always think of this, and I, I love reading, is, is the writer David French, who is really excellent about, about making this point.
If you are a religious person, it means being true to the ideals that you have and being careful that you're not letting ideology be warped or motivated around you. Or, or letting illusory beliefs cause you a problem in the way you're interpreting your own transgressions or those [00:28:00] of others.
Lee: So let, let's talk then about "Loneliness is Hell" and the way you see that working out in ritual and practices.
David: Yeah. Loneliness-- I mean, you know, again, epidemiological medical research shows that loneliness, being chronically lonely, is as bad for your health and, and, and mortality as is smoking. Humans were not designed to be alone.
Uh, in fact, when we are alone or feel rejected by social groups, it actually hurts. Some people say, I, I feel this pain of, of loneliness, or loss if you lose someone. And if you look inside the brain, it's actually activating the centers that actually feel the same pain as if you know, you hit your hand with a hammer.
It's meant to hurt, because we, we do not do well alone. And loneliness, unfortunately, is on the rise in society.
One thing that we find that religions do is they build community in an [00:29:00] amazing way. And part of that is, is sharing beliefs with other people. But they do it in a subtle way. And let me, let me give you an example.
So whatever your faith, often what you'll do is once a week or more, you will, you will come together to worship together. And if you're Christian, you know, I was raised Catholic, so I, I can relate to this. You know, you will listen to readings, you will pray together, you might sing hymns together. If you're Muslim, you're kneeling and bowing together. Jews often chant and what's called shuckle and sway together.
What that is, is it's, it's, it's called motor synchrony. That is, you're moving your body in time with other people. And it seems kind of simple, but what it really is, is a way to build connection. And let me give you an example of how.
So in our lab we, we bring people in, we have them put on earphones, and we play different tones, and we tell them, okay, we want you to tap the sensor on the table in front of you each time you hear a tone. And we either rig the tone so that they're [00:30:00] synchronized, right? So you and I are, we can't talk to each other, we're sitting across the table and we're seeing our hands go up and down and tapping at the same time, or they're completely random. So there's no synchrony.
Lee: Huh.
David: After that-- and this is somebody you've never met before, you don't talk to. After that, we ask you how similar you felt to that person. And people report feeling more similar and they'll say things like, I think he might've been in my class last year, or maybe he was at a party. But the brain is interpreting these, this, the synchronous motion as us being joined together and people have to create a story for it.
But that's interesting. But where it really becomes as important is that we'll take one of these people and we'll kind of get them doing this godawful problem that we designed to be this onerous task they have to do. And it seems unfair that we gave it to them, one of the people in this task. And what we'll find is that if the other person had tapped in sync with the other person, versus tapped randomly, the odds that they'll say, "I want to help this person, it's not fair they got stuck doing this task," and how, how much [00:31:00] compassion they feel for them doubles.
And that's just from--
Lee: Remarkable.
David: --simply doing something in time. Now, other people have then taken this and actually done it within a religious context. So now, not only are you, are you kind of swinging, uh, you're moving your hands or swinging in time, but you're also singing or praying, you're saying the rosary together, or you're singing a hymn together, or it's been done in Hindus doing ch-- chants and mantras together. The effect even becomes larger.
And so what you're seeing is that in those moments when we pray together, right, or engage worship together, it's not just the words we're saying. It's the actual ritual of doing it in time together that is creating a sense of community, building compassion and empathy out of thin air, to cement those communities.
And this was a wisdom-- you know, I thought when we did this, hey look, we discovered a new way to build people together! But it's been, been using by faith communities forever.
The problem though is, is as you see [00:32:00] now, right, during COVID the last two years, we were all home on our computer screens, where this doesn't work the same way.
And so, right, you know, a-- another question for science now that we figured this out is, how can we figure out possible ways to adapt worship, to kind of pick, you know-- because these, these methods were developed to affect people who are co-present together. And as we move into a world that's virtual, they may not work the same way.
But it was just amazing to me how these builds connection out of nowhere. And that's why, people often say, you know, Dave, that data you talk about, where it shows that people who have, uh, who are in religious communities tend to be happier and live longer and healthier, happier lives, why can't we just have a club and do that?
Well, what the data are really showing is it's not the same. Sure, being part of a club helps, some socialization helps, but it doesn't give the same benefit that engagement in spiritual practices does. And one reason why is because I believe these-- and I, [00:33:00] I, I borrow Krista Tippett's term here, 'spiritual technologies,' that is, these elements that have been created as parts of rituals, they're, they're not parts of those other clubs.
And so we're not using that wisdom to help bring us together. And we pray in certain ways. It's not random. There are reasons the rituals are done in that way, that even though people may not recognize now, have a tradition of wisdom with them, that works, that I can measure, empirically.
Lee: Do you think from a, from a social science perspective or psychological perspective, is some of that also due to things like the gravitas, uh, around it, or the ways there's a sort of expectation of rightful authority, or-- what, what would be some of the other kind of social mechanism that you would think play into that?
David: Yeah, I think those are all baked in. And so the argument on-- you know, we are a society that's interested in life hacks, right? If you go to your bestseller self-help at Barnes & Noble or Amazon, it's all, here's a life hack to save money. Here's life hacks.
Lee: Yeah, yeah.
David: And so for me, right, I would, I would say, hey, you want a life hack to build connection? Take a [00:34:00] minute and like, you know, sing a song together, move in time. But the, the argument I use is, life hacks are like playing single notes. Rituals or spiritual practices are like symphonies. That is--
Lee: Fascinating. Yeah.
David: --they build in all those other elements that you're mentioning. So, yeah, we know that people-- so, you know, another example, for example, is if I sit you in front of a computer and I show you information and then, and I ask you, how much do you believe this information or not?
And it's, you know, it's not, it's nothing that you know the answer to. It's, it's information you may not know the answer to. If we elevate the screen so that you're looking up at the words, versus if you're looking at them level or down, you tend to believe them a little more.
Lee: That's crazy. That's crazy.
David: Because it's a cue of elevation is status.
And what do you do in, in worship services? Usually you are kneeling and the, the reverend or the priest or the rabbi is in an elevated position. Why? Again, it's a cue to our brain to believe this [00:35:00] more. Authority matters, and music - everything hits us in a multi-sensory way. And so I think there's a lot there to unpack.
And again, you know, I'm not saying that, that this is just something that people stumbled into, right? Whether it's divinely inspired or not, I don't know. But I do know that there's a wisdom there, and that we social scientists are basically, you know, playing single notes compared, compared to the wisdom of how these things are packaged together in spiritual traditions.
I mean, one of the examples I, I, I hope we get to is, is I, is I really wanna talk about like, things like, like grief and finding meaning, but go ahead. Sorry.
Lee: Yeah, well, I, I, I'll just say this real briefly and then I would love to move to those things. Um, you noted this earlier, but the fact that all of these social practices work in these ways, certainly, as well, means that they can be abused for--
David: Yes.
Lee: --horrific ends.
David: That is exactly, that is exactly right. But the ma-- you know, the argument I make to people is it's the same for science.[00:36:00]
Let me go back to my favorite new atheist, Richard Dawkins. He is fond of saying, if you want to find the most efficient way to kill the most people rapidly, science is your friend. If you wanna find the way, as we've just seen, to save people from a pandemic in a rapid way, science is your friend.
Lee: Hmm.
David: It's the same with religion.
It provides amazing, powerful tools that have been honed through millennia or divinely inspired to move people's hearts and minds. Whether that's for good or for ill depends upon the intentions of the people who are wielding those tools.
Lee: We're going to take a short break, but coming right up, how religion might help one deal with grief and death in a meaningful way, and why studying religious practice [00:37:00] scientifically need not reduce, but can instead add to one's spiritual experience.
So, I mean, you, you're clearly taking a tone that's much more amenable to these kinds of conversations than a lot of the new atheists are.
David: Mm-hmm.
Lee: How do you think about navigating, slash wishing, slash pushing, the new atheist type crowd to be more open to having, or having the kind of posture that you're having towards these sorts of conversations?
David: My argument with them is to stop arguing about things that scientists can't test.
And I understand some-- I mean, sometimes there are some fundamentalist aspects that actually say things that we scientifically can show not to be true. And so I think on both sides of the debate, there are some hardcore fundamentalist sides that reject everything about science and aren't gonna be open to what I say.
And, [00:38:00] and, uh, that's not gonna work. There's some scientists who just can't get beyond the fact that they think the notion of God is, is silly. And I don't think I'm gonna convince either of those. But to people like Richard Dawkins, who I, I will-- who will admit he can't know if God exists for sure, I'll say, look at the data.
These practices lead people to live longer, healthier, and happier lives. Let's not worry about answering the question of if God exists. We can't do that as scientists. But let's come together, and we don't have to give up our epistemology and, and believers don't have to give up their theology. But let's see, in a respectful way, what we can learn from each other.
And I think that's where most people are. I think most people in society have some sense that there's something else out there, but they value science as well. And they, they think that, you know, the creator, if they believe in one, gave us the ability to learn science and to make the world better with it.
And so I'm trying to create that, that space.
Lee: So, um, let's do move to things like midlife--
David: Yeah.
Lee: --and, or grief, [00:39:00] or pursuit of a meaningful life. What are some things that you learned there?
David: Yeah, two things there. One, so one of the thing-- and this, this actually affected me personally.
So I'm a middle-aged guy, I'm 54. And so, if you look at people's happiness throughout life, there tends to be, it tends to bottom out around 50, around midlife. And interestingly, right, just to prove that that survey's right, that's also the time period in, in, in much of the world, where antidepressant use is, is, is highest.
And it's really because it's, it's a time when, if you had a family, your kids are kind of moving out and the next, the generation older than you, your parents are moving on, and you can kind of see retirement coming at work, and you're starting to feel your age, but you're, you're not ready for that. And so the question is how do you, how do you find joy there?
And, and what we find is that as people age, they tend to become happier again. And the reason they become happier is they change what they value. Suddenly it's not about me and my career and getting ahead. They tend to find value in connection with family and [00:40:00] friends, in service, and in meaning to others.
And what that really is, is a function of, is the psychologist Laura Carstensen is a, a psychologist at Stanford found, it really has to do what's, what's called the time horizon to death. As we realize our time is becoming more limited, we start to focus on the things that really bring happiness in life, which is connection with family, friends, service, meaning to others.
Things David Brooks calls 'the second mountain in life'. And, it's interesting, in the pandemic that happened for everyone, because suddenly, right, we had the, the great resignation that people were quitting and trying to find mean-- 'cause suddenly, the time to death became real even if you were 30 years old.
Lee: Right.
David: We didn't know how long you were gonna be here.
But it's funny, you were talking about Thomas Merton. If, if you look back at Thomas a Kempis and, you know, other people way back, they would argue that the key to living and finding joy and meaning in life is to contemplate death regularly. Thomas a Kempis said, "Don't promise yourself that [00:41:00] you're going to be here tomorrow, and live your life accordingly."
And other religious traditions are the same. In, in, in Buddhism, people meditate on death all the time. In Judaism, part of the high holidays of Yom Kippur is they say every year, who's not gonna be here next year? Right? Who's gonna die from fire, from flood, from plague? It's a reminder that our time here is limited. And when people contemplate death, it changes those values now, right?
It makes us turn toward what makes us happier now. And you know, Arthur Brooks in his, in his recent bestseller on, on, on finding strength and joy in midlife, makes that argument. That it's important to turn towards spirituality, especially in midlife if you haven't before, and contemplating death changes that time horizon that we all kind of deny that death is coming, and it pushes us to find happiness.
And what the data show is that when we make that change of, I'm not gonna focus on me, me, me and my career, I'm gonna focus on service [00:42:00] to others and not worry about my own status profile, it brings happiness.
And so if we can all begin to make that change in 50 instead of waiting to 65 when it starts to happen in our society normally, the data shows we will become happier and can begin to avoid that dip in happiness that happens in midlife, avoid the midlife crisis for people who have it, or for most people, it's more the midlife doldrums and unhappiness.
And every spiritual tradition urges us to do this.
Lee: Hmm.
David: And if you engage in your spiritual tradition, it's something that you will do.
Lee: Yeah. Remarkable. That reminds me as well of the, and I'm drawing a blank on whether it's in the book of Proverbs or the Psalms, um, the line about the beginning of wisdom is to number one's days, which I think is what you're pointing to, right?
Quick intrusion here. It's Psalm 90 verse 12. "Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of [00:43:00] wisdom."
David: Yeah, I did not know that verse. Thank you for it. But yes, that's, that is exactly right. And you know, the data show that when people do that, at any age, they find more happiness.
The other big challenge I wanna talk about, you mentioned is, is grief. 'Cause grief is the one, and loss is the one thing that no matter who you are in life, you will face. You know, the, the trick to moving through grief is not to deny it, but to move through it without letting it become paralyzing or letting it go on too long. And unfortunately, that happens to a lot of, a lot of people.
And one thing I wanna point out-- if you look at many religious traditions, Christianity one of them, one thing that we all do when someone dies, at the service, is we come together to eulogize the person. And it seems normal, right, 'cause we all do it. But if you think about it, it's really kind of odd.
Because if I just lost a job that I really loved, or my wife who I love dearly just decided to divorce me, I wouldn't wanna keep thinking about it, because it would make the pain [00:44:00] worse. I would think about, oh my goodness, what am I gonna do without my wife? Or, oh, that job was so wonderful, how did I lose it? It makes the pain worse.
But there's wonderful work by, uh, one of the nation's leading experts on grief, psychologist George Bonanno, that shows when we can create and reinforce positive memories of people who we have lost, that's one of the biggest predictors of moving through grief and finding comfort and reducing the anxiety and depression around it, because it reinforces that sense that there's some connection to that person and some comfort there, even though they're not here anymore. Even though it would never work for anything else because it would make us feel worse.
And you can see that religions have intuited this, right? If we didn't do that, if we didn't come together and do that, we would all be the worse for it. But then there are other, other elements, and one of the examples I love here is, is is the Jewish tradition of sitting Shiva, which is their mourning ritual.
For seven days after someone passes, [00:45:00] it is what's called a a mitzvah, which is a commandment, that other people have to come to the house to pray with them and to visit with them, and to bring the family support. That's called instrumental support, right? They're bringing food. They're helping you do whatever it is that you need to do in that time. You're relieved of all your worldly responsibilities - shopping, paying bills, et cetera.
What has science shown as one of the biggest predictors of moving through grief? Instrumental support. People showing up when you need them. Right? It's not like how many friends do you have on Facebook? That's not instrumental support.
And in Christianity we often do this, but it's not as formalized over that period as it is in Shiva where you must do this.
When people come into the house in Shiva, they will, they will often-- all the mirrors are covered in the house. And you might say, well, that's kind of strange. Why does that happen? Well, there's wonderful psychological data that shows, when you look in a mirror, whatever emotion you're feeling becomes magnified.
So if you're feeling [00:46:00] happy you become happier, or if you're feeling sad you become sadder.
Lee: Wow.
David: And so again, even though there's a theological reason for this, what it is doing is it is actually, in some ways, reducing, reducing grief. You don't worry about how you dress, you don't, you don't shave if you're a man.
Reducing self focus reduces grief. People sit on low stools, which after a while kind of tends to hurt your knees and backs, and they get up to welcome people. There's this really wonderful new psychological neuroscience data that shows mild onsets and offsets of discomfort helps the brain reduce grief.
And again, you see that in, in Shiva people pray-- and, and this is in, in Christian traditions too. People will come and, and pray together at services, at a wake, et cetera, or even at Shiva. That's another example of synchrony, motor synchrony. Doing it together creates compassion and empathy.
And so what you are seeing in these traditions [00:47:00] is not just in what we believe, not just in the words we read, and I'm not saying those aren't important, they certainly are, but in the ways we do them. They leverage parts of our bodies and minds to help us meet life's challenges.
Lee: Well, I, I will certainly say that I, I find your tone and your approach throughout the book and in our conversation today, so, so refreshing and so enjoyable. And, uh, I learned so much from the book.
So we've been talking to Professor David DeSteno, author of the recent book, How God Works: The Science Behind the Benefits of Religion. Thank you, David, so much for your time, and thanks for your good work in the world.
David: Thank you very much.
You've been listening to No Small Endeavor and our interview with David DeSteno, psychologist, author of many books, including How God Works, which we discussed today, and host of the How God Works podcast.
If you missed a [00:48:00] portion of this interview or would like to have access to the complete unabridged version, you can follow our podcast wherever you listen.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of Lilly Endowment Incorporated, a private philanthropic foundation supporting the causes of community development, education, and religion, and the support of the John Templeton Foundation, whose vision is to become a global catalyst for discoveries that contribute to human flourishing.
Our thanks to all the stellar team that makes this show possible. Christie Bragg, Jakob Lewis, Sophie Byard, Tom Anderson, Kate Hays, Mary Eveleen Brown, Cariad Harmon, Jason Sheesley, Ellis Osburn, and Tim Lauer.
Thanks for listening and let's keep exploring what it means to live a good life together.
No Small Endeavor is a production of PRX, Tokens Media, LLC, and Great Feeling Studio.