Alison Wood Brooks (on the science of conversation)

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Armchair Umbrella

Tv & Film, Music, Comedy

4.6 • 68.2K Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2025

⏱️ 138 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Alison Wood Brooks (Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves) is a behavioral research scientist. Alison joins the Armchair Expert to discuss why growing up as a twin is like watching an alternate version of your own life, how we underestimate the complexity of chin wagging, and the reality that human connection is not just about transactional information exchange. Alison and Dax talk about Kant’s sparkling smart people dinner party rules, how hungry we can be to extract vulnerability from others while being hesitant to share it ourselves, and how asking more questions creates magic in one’s personal life. Alison explains research she’s done into the relationship between humor and power, how asking more questions creates magic in one’s personal life, and why saying “I’m sorry” is more powerful than “I love you.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now.
0:06.5	Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.
0:10.0	Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.
0:13.8	Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert Experts on Expert.
0:16.6	I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Lily Padman.
0:18.8	Hi.
0:19.4	Today we have Dr. Allison Wood Brooks.
0:22.1	She is a behavioral research scientist and professor at Harvard.
0:26.8	At Harvard.
0:28.0	That's a very fancy school.
0:29.1	Yeah, it's Harvard Business School.
0:30.9	That's right.
0:31.7	HBS.
0:32.5	HBS.
0:33.4	She has a new book out right now called Talk,
0:37.3	The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves.
0:41.8	She is an incredibly good guest.
0:43.9	So fun.
0:45.1	And I do think we take for granted conversation.
0:49.7	We think we're just going to show up and be able to do it.
0:51.6	I really, really like this in the context, I mean, in general, but dating, which we talk about a fair amount, and why a lot of these are not very successful.
1:01.1	You actually put no time into planning how you're going to converse.
	...

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